Case Title: State ex rel. Fleming v. Rocky River Bd. of Edn.

Citation: 1997-Ohio-4

Docket Number: 19962024

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 1997-07-16T00:00:00Z

Document:
THE STATE EX REL. FLEMING ET AL., APPELLANTS, v.  ROCKY RIVER BOARD OF 
EDUCATION ET AL., APPELLEES. 
[Cite as State ex rel. Fleming v. Rocky River Bd. of Edn. (1997), ___ Ohio St.3d 
__.] 
Schools – Tutors compensated at an hourly rate below R.C. 3317.13(C) 
minimum 
teachers’ 
salary 
schedule 
– 
No 
entitlement 
to 
compensation pursuant to the negotiated classroom teachers’ 
salary schedules rather than the duly adopted tutors’ salary 
schedules for the period between August 1989 and the 1993-1994 
school year, when – Tutors not entitled to be paid as classroom 
teachers for work performed as learning assistants, when. 
 
(No. 96-2024–Submitted May 6, 1997–Decided July 16, 1997.) 
 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County, No. 66757. 
 
Prior to August 1989, appellee Rocky River Board of Education employed 
individuals designated as “tutors” to provide instructional services to certain 
students.  The board compensated these individuals, including appellants, Dorothy 
P. Fleming, Paula Binder, and Carol Weissinger, at an hourly rate below the R.C. 
3317.13(C) minimum teachers’ salary schedule.   
 
The board hired some “tutors” to provide federal and state-mandated special 
education services to handicapped students.  These “tutors” require valid teaching 
 
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certificates, and the board receives partial reimbursement from the State 
Department of Education for wages and retirement contributions paid to these 
certificated tutors. 
 
The board also hired some “tutors” to provide instructional services that 
were not required by state or federal law to students who did not meet the criteria 
for special education services.  These tutors are not required by law to have any 
teacher certification, and the board receives no federal or state funds for providing 
these instructional services. 
 
In August 1989, the board restructured its tutoring program in response to 
our decision in State ex rel. Brown v. Milton-Union Exempted Village Bd. of Edn. 
(1988), 40 Ohio St.3d 21, 531 N.E.2d 1297.  The board divided the individuals 
who had been previously referred to as “tutors” into special education tutors and 
learning assistants.1 
 
Learning assistants, tutors, and classroom teachers all have significantly 
distinct permit or certification requirements and duties.  Unlike tutors and 
classroom teachers, learning assistants are not required to have teaching 
certificates in their specific areas of assignment.  Instead, learning assistants are 
only required to have educational aide permits.  In fact, the board has previously 
 
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allowed nonteachers, including honors students, to serve as learning assistants or 
perform instructional tasks that are normally done by learning assistants. 
 
The board patterned the position of learning assistant after “educational 
aides,” as defined in former R.C. 3319.088.   Learning assistants employed by the 
board are supervised by classroom teachers.  Unlike teachers, learning assistants 
do not introduce educational concepts but instead reinforce and review concepts 
already taught by classroom teachers.  Unlike tutors, learning assistants do not 
prepare, implement, and modify individual education plans for handicapped 
students.  The board receives partial reimbursement from the state for certificated 
tutors but receives no reimbursement from either the federal or state government 
for learning assistants.  Further, while tutors participate in the State Teachers 
Retirement System, learning assistants are members of the School Employees 
Retirement System. 
 
Since August 1989, the board has employed appellants as both special 
education tutors and learning assistants at compensation levels less than it pays 
classroom teachers.  Beginning in August 1989, the board adopted the R.C. 
3317.13(C) minimum teachers’ salary schedule for calculating tutors’ wages, 
which contains increments based on tutors’ academic training and years of service.  
 
4
The board did not file adopted tutors’ salary schedules with the State Department 
of Education until the 1993-1994 school year.  The board paid learning assistants 
an hourly rate below the minimum teachers’ salary schedule based on prevailing 
market conditions and the school district superintendent’s recommendation.  The 
board paid classroom teachers pursuant to salary schedules contained in the 
collective bargaining agreements between the board and the teachers’ union.  The 
board filed all the classroom teachers’ salary schedules with the Department of 
Education. 
 
In January 1994, appellants filed a complaint in the Court of Appeals for 
Cuyahoga County for a writ of mandamus to compel appellees, the board, the 
school district superintendent, and the school district treasurer, to compensate 
them at the salary and retirement benefit levels adopted for classroom teachers for 
the work appellants performed as tutors and learning assistants for the board.    
Following a hearing before a court-appointed commissioner to resolve disputed 
factual issues, the court of appeals granted a limited writ of mandamus to compel 
appellees to pay appellants the difference between what they were paid as tutors 
and what they would have earned under the negotiated classroom teachers’ salary 
schedules in effect between January 1988 and August 1989.  The court of appeals 
 
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denied the writ for those periods following August 1989 for appellants’ work as 
special education tutors and learning assistants.  
 
The cause is now before this court upon an appeal as of right. 
____________________ 
 
Hohmann, Boukis & Brunn Co., L.P.A., and Thomas L. Brunn, Sr.; Law 
Offices of Daniel W. Dreyfuss and Michael T. Williams, for appellants. 
 
Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, L.L.P., and Susan C. Hastings, for appellees. 
____________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
Tutors; R.C. 3317.14 Filing Requirement 
 
Appellants assert in their first proposition of law that the board must 
compensate them under the negotiated classroom teachers’ salary schedules for 
their work as special education tutors from August 1989 until the 1993-1994 
school year.  Appellants claim that the board did not substantially comply with 
R.C. 3317.14 during this period because it did not file the tutors’ salary schedules 
it had adopted.   
 
R.C. 3317.14 requires that each board of education participating in funds 
distributed under R.C. Chapter 3317 “shall annually adopt a teachers’ salary 
 
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schedule with provision for increments based upon training and years of service.”  
R.C. 3317.14 further requires that the adopted teachers’ salary schedule in effect 
on October 15 of each year “shall be filed with the superintendent of public 
instruction” and that a copy of the schedule shall also be filed with the 
“educational service center superintendent, who thereupon shall certify to the 
treasurer of such local district the correct salary to be paid to each teacher in 
accordance with the adopted schedule.” 
 
In State ex rel. Chavis v. Sycamore City School Dist. Bd. of Edn. (1994), 71 
Ohio St.3d 26, 32-33, 641 N.E.2d 188, 194-195, we held that tutors were entitled 
to be paid in accordance with teachers’ salary schedules contained in collective 
bargaining agreements because they were filed and adopted in substantial 
compliance with R.C. 3317.14 when the teachers’ salary schedules were the only 
adopted schedules containing provisions for “increments based upon training and 
years of service,” and the schedules were filed with the Department of Education 
instead of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. 
 
Appellants contend that under Chavis, they are entitled to be compensated 
in accordance with the negotiated salary schedules for classroom teachers because 
the tutors’ salary schedules adopted by the board were not filed with either the 
 
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Superintendent of Public Instruction or the Department of Education.  Appellants’ 
contention lacks merit for the following reasons. 
 
First, we recently rejected a similar contention in State ex rel. Kabert v. 
Shaker Hts. City School Dist. Bd. of Edn. (1997), 78 Ohio St.3d 37, 676 N.E.2d 
101.  We noted that the adopted salary schedules contained provisions for 
increments based upon training and years of service and substantially complied 
with both R.C. 3317.13 and 3317.14, even though they were not filed because, 
among other reasons, “R.C. 3317.14 does not condition payment under teachers’ 
salary schedules adopted by the board on the act of filing.”  78 Ohio St.3d at 42,    
676 N.E.2d at 106.  As in Kabert, the salary schedules adopted here for tutors on 
and after August 1989 contained increments based upon training and years of 
service and substantially complied with R.C. 3317.13 and 3317.14. 
 
Second, the evident purpose of the filing requirement has been satisfied in 
this case.  R.C. 3317.14 indicates that the primary rationale for the filing 
requirement is to ensure that teachers are being paid in accordance with the 
adopted salary schedule.  Here, appellants presented no evidence that the board’s 
failure to file tutors’ salary schedules, which were based on the R.C. 3317.13(C) 
 
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minimum teachers’ salary schedule, ever resulted in appellants’ not being paid in 
accordance with the duly adopted tutors’ salary schedules. 
 
Third, as noted by the court of appeals, “since August, 1989, the Board 
indisputably adopted the additional salary schedule, entered into contracts and 
paid its teacher-tutors accordingly, contributed to the State Teachers Retirement 
System, and received its partial reimbursement from the state based upon the 
adopted, but not physically filed, teachers’ salary schedule.”  Therefore, the state 
had notice of the amounts being paid appellants and reimbursed the board 
accordingly. 
 
Finally, as the court of appeals further held, nothing in R.C. 3317.14 
prevents a board of education from adopting more than one teachers’ salary 
schedule as long as no teacher is paid less than the R.C. 3317.13(C) minimum 
salary and the schedules provide for increments based on training and years of 
service.  Cf. State ex rel. Burch v. Sheffield-Sheffield Lake City School Dist. Bd. of 
Edn. (1996), 75 Ohio St.3d 216, 219, 661 N.E.2d 1086, 1089.  Therefore, the 
board could properly recognize differences in certification requirements and duties 
between tutors and classroom teachers and adopt different salary schedules for 
them. 
 
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Based on the foregoing, the court of appeals correctly held that appellants 
were not entitled to be compensated pursuant to the negotiated classroom teachers’ 
salary schedules rather than the duly adopted tutors’ salary schedules for the 
period between August 1989 and the 1993-1994 school year.  Appellants’ first 
proposition of law is meritless. 
Learning Assistants 
 
Appellants assert in their second proposition of law that they are entitled to 
be paid as classroom teachers for their services as learning assistants. R.C. 
3319.30 precludes persons from receiving teachers’ compensation where they 
have not obtained an appropriate certificate of qualification for the position as 
provided for by R.C. 3319.22.  See Chavis, 71 Ohio St.3d at 30-32, 641 N.E.2d at 
193-194.  Consequently, these appellants are not entitled to the compensation 
given to classroom teachers, since they were not properly certificated.  Id.; see, 
also,  State ex rel. Ekey v. Rocky River Bd. of Edn. (1996), 110 Ohio App.3d 530, 
674 N.E.2d 1199. 
 
Second, the court of appeals determined that appellants’ activities 
established that they were educational aides rather than teachers when they 
worked as learning assistants.  Former R.C. 3319.088 defined “educational aide” 
 
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as “any nonteaching employee in a school district who directly assists a teacher    
* * * by performing duties for which a [teaching] certificate * * * is not required.”  
(137 Ohio Laws, Part I, 1532.)  Educational aides must have permits.  R.C. 
3319.088.  They must be under the supervision or direction of a teacher, and they 
may not be used in place of classroom teachers.  R.C. 3319.088. 
 
Appellants do not dispute that persons with teaching certificates are not 
entitled to teachers’ compensation for work performed as educational aides under 
R.C. 3319.088.  See, e.g., Baker & Carey, Baker’s Ohio School Law 1996-97 Ed. 
(1996) 403-404, Section 8.04 (“A person who acquires teacher certification while 
employed as an aide does not thereby become a teacher or become entitled to 
teacher-level pay.”); State ex rel. White v. Marion City Bd. of Edn. (June 27, 
1989), Marion App. No. 9-87-48, unreported, 1989 WL 71125 (“R.C. 3319.088 
prohibits a teacher’s aide from being employed or being used in place of a teacher.  
Appellant argues that the corollary to the prohibition in R.C. 3319.088 is that there 
is a mandate to pay a teacher’s rate of pay for teacher-related work.  A reading of 
R.C. 3319.088 does not indicate that a teacher cannot be employed as a teacher’s 
aide.  In addition, while R.C. 3319.088 prohibits an aide from performing the 
duties of a teacher, it does not prescribe the remedy requested by the appellant.”). 
 
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Instead, appellants contend that the court of appeals erred in determining 
that they acted as educational aides rather than teachers when they were employed 
as learning assistants.  Appellants cite portions of testimony from appellees’ 
witnesses to support appellants’ claim that they acted as teachers in their learning 
assistant positions. 
 
In essence, appellants request that we render a de novo determination of this 
evidentiary issue.  Generally, an appellate court should not substitute its judgment 
for that of a trial court where competent, credible evidence exists to support the 
judgment.  Seasons Coal Co. v. Cleveland (1984), 10 Ohio St.3d 77, 80, 10 OBR 
408, 411, 461 N.E.2d 1273, 1276.  The court of appeals appointed a commissioner 
who held an evidentiary hearing concerning appellants’ employment as learning 
assistants.  Since the court of appeals, through its commissioner, was able to “view 
the witnesses and observe their demeanor, gestures and voice inflections, and use 
these observations in weighing the credibility of the proffered testimony,” this 
court should defer to the court of appeals’ determination if it is supported by 
competent, credible evidence.  10 Ohio St.3d at 80, 10 OBR at 410, 461 N.E.2d at 
1276.  There is no reason to exercise our discretionary, plenary authority in 
extraordinary writ actions to consider the evidence de novo in this appeal.  Cf. 
 
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State ex rel. Natalina Food Co. v. Ohio Civ. Rights Comm. (1990), 55 Ohio St.3d 
98, 99, 562 N.E.2d 1383, 1384. 
 
Here, as the court of appeals determined, its conclusion that learning 
assistants employed by the board were educational aides rather than teachers is 
supported by “overwhelming evidence.”  The evidence established that the board 
patterned the learning-assistant position after the R.C. 3319.088 definition of 
“educational aide,” and that learning assistants’ duties are significantly different 
from those performed by either classroom teachers or special education tutors.   
 
Therefore, appellants are not entitled to be paid as classroom teachers for 
work they performed as learning assistants.  Appellants’ second proposition of law 
is overruled. 
Conclusion 
 
The court of appeals thus properly held that appellants are not entitled to 
additional compensation as special education tutors or learning assistants after 
August 1989.  Accordingly, the judgment of the court of appeals granting 
appellants only a limited writ of mandamus is affirmed. 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
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MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, COOK and 
LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur. 
 
FOOTNOTES 
1 
Brown held that tutors are teachers for purposes of a board of education’s 
duly adopted teachers’ salary schedule and that they may obtain back pay by way 
of mandamus.