Former Ann Arbor schools principal alleges she was demoted after taking leave to care for disabled husband
(CBS DETROIT) - A former Ann Arbor Public Schools principal has filed a lawsuit alleging that the school district discriminated against her after she took time off to care for her disabled husband.
The lawsuit was filed by Alison Epler on Aug. 1 against the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education.
Epler was hired to be the principal at Bach Elementary in 2015.
Before the 2017-18 school year began, her husband experienced a "serious medical episode, and became, and remains severely disabled." She was granted time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act until November 2017.
In November, she worked in a part-time administrative "special assignment" position and could use sick leave through the principals' professional labor association. This allowed her to keep her full-time salary.
Dawn Linden, who was the school district's director for elementary education at the time, had told her she wouldn't return to Bach Elementary School, and the interim principal who replaced Epler during her time was going to be retained, the lawsuit alleges.
Epler accepted the lead principal position at Haisley Elementary for the 2018-19 school year, but in the spring of 2018, "her husband suffered a relapse of his medical condition."
"Upon learning this information, Ms. Linden and Lee Ann Dickinson-Kelley, who was Deputy Superintendent for Instructional Services, informed Ms. Epler that they were revoking the offer for Ms. Epler to take the Haisley position," according to the lawsuit. "They specifically told her that it was because of her husband's relapse, and that they needed a principal who was not at risk to go on leave, or otherwise be prone to take leave or be distracted, because of a partner's medical condition."
The lawsuit alleges that over the next six years, she was denied multiple other lead principal positions in the district. In the 2024-25 school year, her salary, which the lawsuit says was "frozen at the lead principal rate" ever since she had been revoked from the position at Haisley, would be reduced to the assistant principal rate, a cut of about $10,000.
Epler then resigned from the school district in the spring of 2024.
The lawsuit alleges that the school district violated the Family and Medical Leave Act, in which "employers are prohibited from interfering, restraining, or denying the exercise of or attempted exercise of any FMLA right." According to the lawsuit, the school district violated the act by "refusing to maintain Epler's compensation and denying her lead principal positions.
Read the full lawsuit below: