An English-speaking teacher says the Miami-Dade County School Board discriminated against her by not hiring her for a job. The position? Teaching an hour of Spanish per day. 
 
 Tracy Rosner, a third-grade teacher at Coral Reef Elementary, filed a federal lawsuit in the Southern District of Florida last week claiming employment discrimination on the basis of her race — which is white. 
 
 Miami-Dade School Board attorneys have not filed a formal response in court and did not return calls for comment Thursday. We'll update this post if they provide one. 
 
 Rosner's attorneys write that her school's students are on three tracks: college preparatory, gifted, and extended foreign language (EFL), where they receive one hour of foreign language instruction per day. In May 2015, Rosner requested to be reassigned to the EFL track, where students are taught both English and another language. 
 
 But Rosner says the principal had an unfair policy of requiring its foreign language teachers to actually speak the language they were teaching. In a totally ¿En serio? moment, Rosner claims that she was "otherwise fully qualified" for the job and that the policy is discriminatory. Her complaint says the school could have given her the job and then just had someone else teach the foreign language component for one hour per day. 
 
 After she was denied the job, Rosner says, the school's principal retaliated by doubling her workload and asking her to teach all the subjects instead of just reading and language arts. Rosner apparently complained to the superintendent and even made a formal complaint to the school district's civil rights office, but administrators there found no probable cause and closed the case. 
 
 The lawsuit claims that non-Spanish speakers are a minority population in Miami-Dade County and that seeking employment solely from Spanish speakers "disproportionately affects" Rosner and others like her. 
 
 "As a direct and proximate result of the retaliation against Ms. Rosner, and the violation of her rights... Ms. Rosner was provided a less desirable position and has damages including emotional pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental anguish, [and] loss of enjoyment of life," the lawsuit states. 
 
 Rosner did not respond to a message from New Times seeking comment. ||||| Teacher who doesn't speak Spanish sues after being rejected from job teaching Spanish 
 
 A non-Spanish-speaking teacher at Coral Reef Elementary is suing her employer for rejecting her from a job that required her to teach the language. Google Maps ||||| Leon's at 3131 S. 27th St. Credit: Journal Sentinel files 
 
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 You might not want to order helado de menta at Leon's Frozen Custard - that was the flavor of the day on Thursday - because the owner of the famous stand on Milwaukee's south side urges his employees to speak only English. 
 
 After news surfaced this week that the owner of Leon's told his employees not to converse with customers ordering in Spanish, a Latino civil rights organization called for a federal investigation and a Milwaukee business catering to families decided to hand out free ice cream to anyone who asks for it in a language other than English. 
 
 Leon's owner Ron Schneider said his employees and customers are not barred from speaking Spanish, but that for about a year he's been telling staff to communicate in English as much as possible. 
 
 "I'm trying to avoid (customers) getting used to Spanish and then one day finding no one here who can speak it," Schneider said in a telephone interview Wednesday night, adding that only a few of the custard stand's roughly two dozen employees speak Spanish. 
 
 That prompted the League of United Latin American Citizens to call for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to investigate the "policy" at the restaurant, contending that it violates federal labor law. 
 
 "While many of us consider (Leon's) as a community institution, it was surprising when we learned of their language policy, which is in clear violation of federal labor law," the organization said in a statement. 
 
 On Thursday, Bounce Milwaukee, a business that offers laser tag, rock climbing, vintage arcade games and inflatable play equipment, decided to offer free scoops of Purple Door Ice Cream in response to the Leon's news. Anyone who gets to Bounce Milwaukee by closing time at 9 p.m. Thursday, and asks for vanilla, chocolate, salted caramel or Bounce Berry Chocolate Chunk (blueberry ice cream with chocolate chunks) in any language will get one free scoop in a dish. 
 
 "We decided to celebrate diversity rather than being afraid of it," said Ryan Clancy, co-owner of Bounce Milwaukee, 2801 S. 5th Court. 
 
 Employees at Bounce speak around 20 languages and dialects other than English including Croatian, Russian, Korean, Menominee and Tagalog. In an interview over the lunch hour, Clancy said several people had shown up to get a free scoop, with Spanish the most common language, followed by American Sign Language. 
 
 "It's anybody attempting to order in a language other than English. If you don't happen to know or aren't fluent in a second language, come down anyway and take your best stab. Or if you want to, pull out your phone and use Google Translate," Clancy said. 
 
 The issue surfaced Wednesday after a Spanish-speaking customer told WISN-TV in Milwaukee that he witnessed a Leon's employee tell another Spanish-speaking customer to place her order in English. 
 
 The man, who speaks both English and Spanish, said when he placed his order in Spanish the employee said she was not allowed to speak Spanish to him. 
 
 Rules requiring workers to speak only English violate federal law unless they are reasonably necessary to the business' operation, such as emergencies in which a common language is necessary for safety of all, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 
 
 The agency contends that requiring workers to speak English at all times is rarely justified. However, the agency also said that some jobs require English-language skills, including teaching, customer service and telemarketing to English-speaking clients. 
 
 Frozen custard is a regional staple that's very popular in Milwaukee and Leon's, located on the busy corner of S. 27th and W. Oklahoma Ave. across from Pulaski High School and Aurora St. Luke's Medical Center, has been an institution for decades. It's common to see long lines of people at all hours and all kinds of weather. 
 
 "I'd prefer that (employees) didn't speak in Spanish," said Schneider, who added that his wife is of Spanish and Apache Indian descent and only speaks English. 
 
 "This is still the United States. Why do we have to get involved in multi language things?" Schneider said. 
 
 If a Spanish-speaking employee is on duty and there is no other way to communicate with a customer Schneider said he would not prevent a Spanish language transaction. 
 
 He also pointed out that there are no signs posted pertaining to an English-only policy, that Spanish-speaking employees are free to talk to each other in the language and that his customers can speak any language they want. 
 
 "I guess I'm just an old guy too steeped in tradition," Schneider said.
– A Florida schoolteacher has filed a workplace discrimination lawsuit against her employer for turning her down for a job teaching Spanish—even though she doesn't speak Spanish, the News & Observer reports. Tracy Rosner, who teaches third grade at Coral Reef Elementary in Palmetto Bay, alleges in her federal complaint against the Miami-Dade County School Board that she applied to be reassigned to teach the extended foreign language (EFL) track—one of three tracks the school offers its students, in addition to college prep and gifted, per the Miami New Times—which would require her to teach one hour of Spanish per day. Rosner says her request was denied, even though she's "otherwise fully qualified" for the job, and that after she was rejected, the principal upped her workload in retaliation. How Rosner says she would get around that pesky fluency requirement: She'd have another Spanish-speaking teacher come in for that one hour a day to instruct her students. She notes in her suit that non-Spanish speakers are in the minority in Miami-Dade County, which "disproportionately affects" her ability to find a suitable job. "Ms. Rosner was provided a less desirable position and has damages including emotional pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental anguish, [and] loss of enjoyment of life," the suit states. It's not clear which track Rosner had previously been teaching or why she had asked for the reassignment. (The owner of a Milwaukee frozen-custard stand doesn't want any language other than English spoken at work.)