A lawsuit alleging Central Bucks underpaid more than 350 female teachers is nearing trial. Here’s what to know.

Four years after their legal battle started, some of the more than 350 women suing the Central Bucks School District over unequal pay are headed to court Tuesday to address a key question underlying their allegations: Which male teachers did the district favor compared to them?

The women — current and former district teachers — say they were hired at lower pay rates than their years of teaching experience warranted under the district’s salary schedule. In contrast, they point to male teachers who were credited with their full years of experience — and in some cases, with additional experience they didn’t have.

But the district is arguing the plaintiffs have cherry-picked teachers and have made unfair comparisons. Instead of compiling a group of men that have been treated more favorably, as the teachers have done, the district says each plaintiff needs to identify a particular male teacher hired in the same year as her, with equivalent skills and responsibilities.

The two sides, who will meet for a hearing Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, have not been able to reach agreement on claims that could cost the district more than $100 million. The case is scheduled for trial July 22 and is being closely watched by other school districts, amid ongoing teacher shortages that have led some school systems to hire teachers for hard-to-fill positions at higher-than-normal steps on their salary scales.

Rebecca Cartee-Haring, an English teacher who sued the district in 2020, reviewed close to 500 personnel files provided by the district for male teachers, dating back to 1988.

Of the 338 female plaintiffs for which the district supplied personnel files, 54 had four or more years of teaching experience and were placed at step one — the lowest step on the district’s salary scale, Cartee-Haring said. Of those 54 women, 20 had 10 or more years of experience, and were still placed at step one, she said.

But of the 500 men, no man with eight or more years of experience was placed at step one, Cartee-Haring said. There was one man who had seven years of experience and was placed at step one, while two had five years and were put at step one, she said.

Meanwhile, 23 men received credit for years they never taught — including seven who had no prior teaching experience, Cartee-Haring said. She found no examples of women who received similar treatment.

The definition of each step can vary from year to year, but according to the district’s latest filing, since 2014, step one is for teachers with zero to two years’ experience.

Cartee-Haring’s lawsuit was followed a year later by a second from another English teacher, Dawn Marinello. That second case was certified as a collective action, with women who taught in the district as far back as 2000 allowed to opt in as plaintiffs.

“A lot of the women feel really disrespected,” said Cartee-Haring, who was placed on the fifth step when she was hired in 2007 after teaching high school English for nine years in Hatboro-Horsham. She earned $54,100, but should have been placed on the tenth step, with a salary of $66,650, according to her lawsuit — which says that in contrast, a male teacher hired to teach high school social studies in 2010 with 14 years of teaching experience was placed at the 16th step, with a salary of $101,810.

“You think this couldn’t possibly have occurred, but it’s literally all there in black and white,” Cartee-Haring said of the pay disparities.

Cartee-Haring said the school board has refused to hear a presentation from her and Marinello’s lawyer, despite a judge recommending it do so.

Karen Smith, the school board president, said the board was advised by lawyers that hearing a presentation would be a “very odd situation” and that it could violate the open-meetings law, if it did so in an executive session.

The pay-equity cases became a political football ahead of the November school board elections when the district’s lawyer, Michael Levin, made a public presentation to the then-Republican-led school board.

During his presentation, Levin said that if the district accepted a $119 million settlement demand from the plaintiffs, it would increase the average tax bill by $3,500 — a 50% increase — or require deep cuts to school staff and services.

Republicans then accused Democratic candidates — including Rick Haring, Cartee-Haring’s husband — of seeking to impose massive tax increases. Democrats, who swept the elections, said Levin’s presentation was misleading and noted that Pennsylvania’s Act 1 index limits school district tax increases; the coming year’s limit is 5.3%.

Haring said he’s had “zero involvement” on the board with the pay equity cases, and hasn’t participated in any board discussions on the matter.

So far, the new board has not moved to settle the case. “We can’t afford” a $100 million settlement, Smith said last week.

She also rejected the idea the district has been discriminating against female teachers. “I don’t believe there’s been a pattern of discrimination, no,” Smith said.

Levin didn’t respond to requests for comment. The district also recently hired lawyers with the Cozen O’Connor firm in preparation for a possible appeal.

(Haring said he disagrees with the board’s approach to the issue: “I do not want to be viewed as sharing the same sentiment,” he said.)

In a Friday court filing, lawyers for the district said that plaintiffs had failed to show valid comparisons between teachers in a chart that lists most of the plaintiffs, along with 122 male teachers. The chart — prepared by plaintiffs as a summary intended to prevent every teacher from having to testify at trial — lists the years of experience each teacher had before being hired by Central Bucks, what step the teacher was placed at, and whether the placement was higher or lower than the district’s hiring guidelines.

The chart contains numerous errors, including incorrectly counting the years of experience some teachers had, the district said. It also doesn’t distinguish between teaching specialties — like kindergarten compared to high school mathematics — or note that some of the men had certifications in hard-to-fill positions, including industrial technology, German, and physics, the district said.

The district also says its hiring guidelines have changed over time, with different recommended placements based on years of experience.

Under the Equal Pay Act, it’s the district’s burden to prove that a factor other than gender resulted in a decision to compensate men and women differently, “so clearly that no juror would believe otherwise,” said Ed Mazurek, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. That’s a higher standard for the employer to meet than for other discrimination cases, Mazurek said.

While the district argues that the Equal Pay Act requires plaintiffs to each identify a male comparator, “to us, it’s very clear under the law all teachers are comparators to each other based on their jobs,” Mazurek said.

Mazurek said plaintiffs are seeking $102 million in back pay and damages. That doesn’t include attorneys’ fees that could be awarded at trial; Mazurek said awards in other equal pay cases have ranged from 20% to 45% of damages. Plaintiffs are also seeking an order that the district pay the female teachers at higher rates going forward.

The president of the district’s teachers union didn’t respond to a request for comment Monday.

Cartee-Haring — whose lawsuit also accuses the district of discrimination and retaliation in ending her lacrosse coaching contract — worries that if the case goes to trial, the district will invoke “stereotypes” about different teaching specialties, like that teaching kindergarten doesn’t require as much preparation as high school history.

“That’s going to divide the community, in many ways,” she said.