JCPS employment discrimination trial rescheduled

The trial that had been scheduled to start at the end of the month for one of the active lawsuits against Jefferson City Public Schools is set to be rescheduled.

A judicial order filed Feb. 6 granted without objection the attorneys for the defendants in Tammy Ferry’s employment discrimination lawsuit — JCPS, Superintendent Larry Linthacum and Director of Technology Joe Martin — to take the trial for that case off of the Cole County Circuit Court’s trial docket and for the parties to contact the court to reschedule it for a yet to be listed date.

The trial had been scheduled to begin Feb. 25 and go through March 6.

A Tuesday court filing by Ferry’s co-counsel Roger G. Brown shows the trial would probably not happen before late March at the earliest, based on a list of dates that would not work for him for rescheduling.

Ferry’s lead counsel is Kansas City attorney Dennis Egan. Ferry is an instructional technology coordinator for the district.

The attorneys in Ferry’s case for the school district, Linthacum and Martin — Christopher Rackers and Ryan Bertels, both of Schreimann, Rackers & Francka, LLC — have also recently been listed in online court records as the school district’s counsel in the lawsuit filed last month by Roxanna L. Meudt-Antele on behalf of her son against the district and a former teacher and wrestling coach Alexander Whelan.

According to online court records, no attorneys had yet been listed as of Thursday afternoon as representing the school district in separate employment discrimination lawsuits also filed last month in the Cole County Circuit Court by a Simonsen 9th Grade Center math teacher and a former physical therapist’s assistant.

The next scheduled trial in a lawsuit against JCPS is scheduled for May, in an employment discrimination suit filed in the U.S. District Court for Western Missouri by a Jefferson City High School staff member. A separate suit also filed last year in the same federal court by a student and her family against the district and JCHS principal is scheduled for trial in September.