Garovoy v. Board of Education
Garovoy v. Board of Education
Opinion of the Court
This ease arises out of an appeal by a tenured teacher to the Court of Common Pleas from a decision by his employer, the defendant Board of Education of Regional District No. 1, hereinafter the board, terminating his position in a music special education program under the Teacher Tenure Act, General Statutes § 10-151 (b).
The trial court examined General Statutes §10-151 (b), which provides six conditions upon which a teacher’s employment contract may be terminated, focusing on the fifth and only relevant condition in this case.
The issue confronted by this court is the trial court’s interpretation of § 10-151 (b) (5); whether it requires the defendant board to replace a nontenured teacher with a tenured teacher whose position has been eliminated, provided, of course, that the tenured teacher is qualified to occupy that position. As previously stated, § 10-151 (b) (5) permits termination of a teacher’s contract upon “elimination of the position to which the teacher was appointed, if no other position exists to which he or she may be appointed if qualified.” The appellant board argues that the “other position” must, by implication, be vacant. The appellee and tenured teacher Garovoy, on the other hand, contends that the “other position” may be vacant or filled by a nontenured teacher; in either case, it is available for reassignment to him because he has tenure.
There is error in the proceedings below because the relief granted by the trial court necessitated the termination of the nontenured teacher’s contract for a reason not expressly included in those mandated by the legislature. Section 10-151 (a) provides six reasons for termination of a nontenured teacher’s contract but seniority or the availability of a tenured teacher to fill that position is not among them. Moreover, the court’s order did not accord the nontenured teacher whose two and one-half day position was eliminated, the procedural rights guaranteed him or her under §10-151 (a) of the Act; the same rights which were exercised by the plaintiff when he received notice of his termination. To grant such relief at the nontenured teacher’s expense, bypassing his or her statutory rights,
The rights of tenured teachers in our local schools have traditionally rested within the domain of the legislature or of municipalities. In our most recent decision under the Teacher Tenure Act; Delagorges v. Board of Education, Richards v. Board of Education, 176 Conn. 630, 410 A.2d 461 (1979); this court declined an invitation to broaden the provisions of the Act to provide tenure for administrators, not as teachers but as administrators, in the absence of legislative direction. This court should not, without statutory authority, presume to resolve this important issue affecting the fundamental rights of teachers, whether they be tenured or untenured, and the quality of education in our state.
The plaintiff, Philip Garovoy, also claims that the defendant board failed to comply with the procedural protections of the statute because its members did not vote to consider the termination of his contract. General Statutes § 10-151 (b) does not require that the board vote to consider termination. According to the facts alleged in the plaintiff’s own complaint the board complied with the procedural protections required by the statute. Joanou v. Board of Education, 165 Conn. 671, 673-74, 345 A.2d 46 (1974).
There is error, the judgment is set aside and the case is remanded with direction to dismiss the appeal.
In this opinion Cotter, C. J., Bogdanski and Longo, Js., concurred.
The six permissible grounds for termination are: (1) Inefficiency or incompetence; (2) insubordination against reasonable rules of the board of education; (3) moral misconduct; (4) disability, as shown by competent medical evidence; (5) elimination of the position to which the teacher was appointed, if no other position exists to which he or she may be appointed if qualified; or (6) other due and sufficient cause. General Statutes § 10-151 (b).
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting). I agree with, my colleagues that no literal reading of the various statutes that comprise the Teacher Tenure Act can resolve the difficult question before us. Under these circumstances, I believe that the policy behind the act requires us to adopt the construction that will protect tenured rather than nontenured teachers. I therefore concur in the conclusion reached by the trial court.
The situation with which we are confronted in this case is likely to recur in many communities faced with declining school enrollments. It is clear that local boards of education, rather than courts, are vested with the authority and the discretion to determine how best to respond to changing educational needs and impacted school budgets. It is equally clear that the Teacher Tenure Act was designed to protect employment rights of tenured teachers despite the consequent limitation of the exercise of managerial discretion by school boards. Herzig v. Board of Education, 152 Conn. 144, 151, 204 A.2d 827 (1964). In Delagorges v. Board of Education, 176 Conn. 630, 410 A.2d 461 (1979), we resolved the inevitably continuous conflict between managerial discretion and the principle of tenure to permit school administrators to reassign school personnel without regard to diminution of status or of salary. The issue in this ease, however, goes far beyond Delagorges, for it concerns termination and not reassignment, and thus goes to the heart of the principle of tenure, the preference for retention of teachers who have earned tenure. What is at stake here is whether school boards have unlimited authority to displace competent tenured teachers by competent nontenured teachers. For it is inescapable
I would therefore read § 10-151 (b) (5), contrary to the view of my colleagues, to require a school board to reassign a tenured teacher whose position has been eliminated to another position in the school system for which that teacher is qualified, if that position is vacant or filled by a nontenured teacher. It is true that $ 10-151 (a) states grounds for the termination of nontenured teachers, and that none of the grounds there enumerated specifically refers to displacement by a teacher with tenure. As we recently held, however, in Tucker v. Board of Education, 177 Conn. 572, 418 A.2d 933 (1979), the sixth stated ground, “other due and sufficient cause,” allows termination, with proper notice, on grounds closely related to, but not explicitly stated by, the statute. If a teacher may legally be terminated for insubordination, although there was no violation of a “reasonable rule of the board of education,” I believe that a nontenured teacher may equally be terminated because the position to which the teacher was appointed must now be surrendered to a teacher with tenure. It should be noted furthermore that readjustments after recognition of the rights of the plaintiff must, in the first instance, be planned and implemented by the defendant board, which has as yet taken no reviewable steps in that direction.
I would therefore find no error in the judgment of the trial court and would sustain the plaintiff’s appeal from the decision of the defendant board.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Philip Garovoy v. Board of Education of Regional School District No. 1
- Cited By
- 7 cases
- Status
- Published