Case ID: so2d_653/html/1001-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "ALMON, Justice. \n      COOK, Justice", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Ex Parte Juanita DUNSON. (Re Juanita DUNSON v. ALABAMA STATE TENURE COMMISSION).
    1940020.
    Supreme Court of Alabama.
    Jan. 13, 1995.
    Amardo W. Pitters and Terry G. Davis of Terry G. Davis, P.C., Montgomery, for petitioner.
    Walter Gregory Ward, Lanett, for respondent.
   ALMON, Justice.

WRIT DENIED.

MADDOX, SHORES, HOUSTON, KENNEDY and INGRAM, JJ., concur.

COOK, J., dissents.

COOK, Justice

(dissenting).

I respectfully dissent. A tenured public school teacher has petitioned this Court to consider the following question: Whether the board of education may, in a hearing convened to address its proposed termination of a teacher with 23 years of experience, and consistent with due process requirements, rely on allegations that a decline in students’ standardized test scores evidenced the teacher’s incompetence, where the specific reasons contained in the board’s pretermination notice to the teacher failed to include the decline as a reason for termination?

The board failed to provide in its preter-mination notice any indication that it was going to consider a decline in students’ standardized test scores as evidence of incompetence, yet at the hearing it heard substantial evidence relating to a decline in test scores. Procedural due process requires notice, to allow for the preparation of a defense. It appears that the board considered evidence of declining test scores as bearing on the question of competency. Therefore, in my judgment, the dismissal was based on a proceeding conducted without adequate notice and violated the constitutional guaranty of due process. I would therefore grant the writ.