Elmhurst Schools Settle Ex-Employee's Lawsuit

ELMHURST, IL – The Elmhurst school board this week settled a lawsuit filed by a former employee who alleged the school violated her rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

"This is a settlement agreement that does not constitute admission of any wrongdoing on behalf of the district," board President Athena Arvanitis said.

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The board did not reveal the settlement amount. On Thursday, Patch filed a request for the agreement, which is a public record under state law.

In April 2025, Diana Garcia, a former technology support specialist, sued Elmhurst School District 205 in federal court.

According to the lawsuit, the district fired Garcia a year earlier, alleging she committed "time theft."

Garcia, who started in 2021, said she excelled in her role, developed strong relationships with the district's staff and received consistently positive performance reviews.

In its response to the lawsuit, the district denied those assertions.

In May 2023, Garcia's father became ill. She said she requested "intermittent" leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, so she could help with his care.

With that request pending, Garcia's father died unexpectedly. The lawsuit said Garcia began suffering from severe depression.

She then filed a second request for intermittent leave for her own mental health. It was approved.

From that point, Garcia said her relationship with the district deteriorated, with her supervisor regularly harassing her about using leave. The district denied that.

Then the district issued unjustified discliplinary writeups for trivial matters, Garcia said.

She was written up for clocking in late in November 2023 and for parking in the wrong place in January 2024. She was accused of parking in the pickup lane at one of the schools.

The district said it had warned her about those violations before. (She said it was not uncommon for her to clock in at one building and then leave to go to another.)

On April 4, 2024, she was informed of her firing in a meeting with Rudy Gomez, the district's technology director.

Gomez said she had committed time theft, saying she did not work between 7:16 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. during a workday two weeks earlier.

The district said it had engaged in an "extensive review of video footage and fob card footage" before concluding Garcia had stolen time.

But Garcia maintained that the district failed to take the most basic step in such an investigation – get her side of the story.

Minutes after the meeting, Garcia said she reviewed her Google timeline and accounted for where she was on the day in question.

"Had Mr. Gomez given Plaintiff an opportunity to review the false allegation against her and to provide a substantive response, she would have easily rebutted the allegations of time theft and could have told him that video footage from Door 43 at York would confirm her timeline," the lawsuit said.

The district disputed her timeline.