Title: State ex rel. Carna v. Teays Valley Local Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ.

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
State ex rel. Carna v. Teays Valley Local School Dist. Bd. of Edn., Slip Opinion No. 2012-
Ohio-1484.] 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in 
an advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested 
to promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 
65 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or 
other formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be 
made before the opinion is published. 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2012-OHIO-1484 
STATE EX REL. CARNA, APPELLANT, v. TEAYS VALLEY LOCAL SCHOOL 
DISTRICT BOARD OF EDUCATION, APPELLEE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets,  
it may be cited as State ex rel. Carna v. Teays Valley Local School Dist. Bd. of 
Edn., Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-1484.] 
Public schools—Nonrenewal of administrators’ contracts—R.C. 3319.02(D)—
Timing of administrator’s request for meeting with school board to 
discuss reasons for nonrenewal. 
(No. 2011-0716—Submitted December 7, 2011—Decided April 4, 2012.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Pickaway County,  
No. 10CA18, 2011-Ohio-1522. 
__________________ 
 
O’CONNOR, C.J. 
{¶ 1} In this appeal, we address the rights conferred on school 
administrators by the General Assembly through R.C. 3319.02(D), which governs 
the renewal and nonrenewal of school administrators’ contracts.  We hold that 
after an administrator has been informed that her contract will not be renewed, 
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upon the administrator’s request for a meeting with the school board to discuss 
the nonrenewal of her contract, R.C. 3319.02(D)(4) requires the board to meet in 
executive session with the administrator to discuss the reasons for nonrenewal.  In 
light of our holding, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and remand 
to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
RELEVANT BACKGROUND 
Factual History 
{¶ 2} In June 2006, appellant Stacey Carna entered into a two-year 
administrator’s contract for employment with appellee, Teays Valley Local 
School District Board of Education, as the principal of Ashville Elementary 
School.  Carna received positive performance evaluations from Teays Valley’s 
assistant superintendent, Robert Thompson, in November 2006 and again in 
February 2007.  But after the Ohio Achievement Tests were administered at 
Ashville Elementary School in the spring of 2007, Carna was placed on 
administrative leave due to allegations by secretaries and teachers that Carna had 
illegally altered her students’ answers on the tests.  Carna steadfastly denied any 
wrongdoing and averred that those making the allegations were employees whom 
she, as principal, had disciplined.  The school board was unmoved by Carna’s 
protestations of innocence. 
{¶ 3} In May 2007, Carna was  placed on administrative leave “pending 
an investigation into possible improprieties during spring 2007” and replaced as 
principal because, according to Thompson, it “was felt she could no longer 
provide effective leadership for the district based on the alleged allegations [sic].”  
In June or July 2007, Thompson orally informed Carna that “she would not return 
to the district for the 2007-08 school year and at the conclusion of her contract she 
would not be recommended for another contract.”1  According to Carna, the 
                                                     
 
1  Somewhat inconsistently, however, Thompson also told Carna that she would remain on paid 
administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation of the allegations by the Ohio 
January Term, 2012 
3 
 
meeting was on July 11, 2007, and she immediately told Thompson that she 
wanted a meeting with the board to discuss the nonrenewal of her contract. 
{¶ 4} In written administrative evaluations dated December 15, 2007, 
and February 25, 2008, Thompson informed Carna that she would not be rehired 
for the 2007-2008 school year and that she would not be recommended for 
another contract.  And in February 2008, Thompson expressly stated in an 
administrative evaluation given to Carna, “The superintendent intends to 
recommend to the Teays Valley School Board Stacey Carna’s contract not be 
renewed for the 2008-09 school year.” 
{¶ 5} On March 17, 2008, two weeks before the statutory deadline in 
R.C. 3319.02(C) to determine the renewal and nonrenewal of contracts, the board 
voted not to renew Carna’s contract.  It did so (1) without giving Carna notice that 
it would decide her fate at the meeting, (2) without convening an executive 
session, and (3) without waiting for the Ohio Department of Education to 
complete its investigation of the allegations against Carna. 
{¶ 6} Eight months later, in November 2008, ODE completed its 
consideration of the claims against Carna.  After reviewing the evidence, which 
included the testimony of numerous witnesses over five days of hearings, ODE 
concluded that the evidence did not demonstrate that the achievement tests had 
been altered improperly.  Moreover, ODE expressly found that even if the 
evidence had demonstrated that alterations had been made, there was not 
sufficient evidence from which to conclude that Carna was the culprit in any 
wrongdoing.  ODE took no action against her. 
{¶ 7} Even after her exoneration, the school board never honored 
Carna’s request for a meeting to discuss the nonrenewal of her contract. 
 
 
                                                                                                                                                 
Department of Education.  As noted below, ODE did not announce its decision until November 
2008, more than seven months after the board voted not to renew Carna’s contract. 
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Procedural History 
{¶ 8} After her termination, Carna brought suit in the Pickaway County 
Common Pleas Court requesting mandamus relief, which we have held to be the 
appropriate device for a school administrator to use when seeking reemployment, 
damages, or back pay for nonrenewal of an employment contract.  See, e.g., State 
ex rel. Cassels v. Dayton City School Dist. Bd. of Edn., 69 Ohio St.3d 217, 631 
N.E.2d 150 (1994).  The trial court denied relief and entered summary judgment 
for Teays Valley. 
{¶ 9} The Fourth District Court of Appeals affirmed.  In doing so, it 
properly identified the legal issue in this case:  “Whether appellant has a clear 
legal right to reinstatement depends upon the meaning of the request provisions 
contained in R.C. 3[3]19.02(D).  Thus, the crux of this case is whether appellant’s 
July 2007 request to meet with the Board constituted a request for ‘a meeting as 
prescribed in division (D)(4).’ ”  2011-Ohio-1522, 2011 WL 1158643, at ¶ 11. 
{¶ 10} In its analysis, the appellate court agreed with the trial court’s 
conclusion that Carna’s July 11, 2007 request did not constitute a request for a 
meeting as envisioned in R.C. 3319.02(D)(4): 
 
Appellant’s July 11, 2007 request occurred in response to the 
assistant superintendent’s statement, made approximately one year 
before her contract was set to expire, that the Board planned to not 
renew her contract.  After that notification, appellant received at 
least two written administrative evaluations that, in essence, 
notified her that her contract would not be renewed.  Both of these 
evaluations occurred in the year that her contract was set to expire. 
After she received these evaluations, she did not request a meeting 
with the board.  R.C. 3[3]19.02(D)(4) governs a request for a 
meeting made “[b]efore [the board] tak[es] action to renew or 
January Term, 2012 
5 
 
nonrenew the contract.”  Although appellant’s request in July 2007 
occurred before the board took action to renew or nonrenew her 
contract, we agree with the trial court that the statute implies that 
the request must occur not at any time before the board takes 
action, but at a time reasonably related to the board’s impending 
decision.  To hold otherwise, as appellee argues, means that an 
administrator could request a meeting with the board the day after 
the administrator is hired under a two-year contract, then sit on that 
right until the board takes action on the contract, only to then 
complain that the board failed to honor the request for a meeting 
made nearly two years earlier. 
 
(Emphasis added.)  2008-Ohio-1522, 2011 WL 1158643, at ¶ 15. 
{¶ 11} The appellate court then held: 
 
The statutory scheme contemplates an administrator’s requesting a 
meeting after three things occur: (1) the superintendent or his 
designee conducts the final evaluation of the administrator; (2) the 
administrator 
learns 
of 
the 
superintendent’s 
intended 
recommendation, as indicated on the final evaluation under 
division (D)(2)(c)(ii); and (3) the board notifies the administrator 
of the contract’s expiration date and her right to request a meeting.  
An administrator’s request for a meeting during a conversation 
some seven months before the administrator’s final evaluation and 
the superintendent’s official recommendation to the board is not a 
basis for alleging a violation of division (D)(4). 
 
Id. at ¶ 16. 
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{¶ 12} The court of appeals concluded: 
 
R.C. 3319.02(D)(2)(ii) requires that a preliminary and a 
final evaluation be conducted in the year that the  administrator’s 
contract is due to expire. The final evaluation must indicate the 
superintendent’s intended recommendation to the board regarding 
the administrator’s contract.  R.C. 3319.02(D)(2)(ii).  The board 
must consider these evaluations when deciding whether to renew 
the administrator’s contract. Id.  Thus, without these evaluations, a 
board cannot take action on the administrator’s contract.  Not until 
the final evaluation does an administrator receive formal notice as 
to whether the superintendent will recommend contract renewal.  
Construing the statute as a whole, we believe that it is the 
preliminary 
evaluation 
and 
the 
superintendent’s 
intended 
recommendation that trigger[] the administrator’s right to request a 
meeting with the board, except in those circumstances when the 
board notifies the administrator of the contract expiration date. 
 
Id. at 17. 
{¶ 13} We accepted Carna’s discretionary appeal from the appellate 
court’s judgment in favor of Teays Valley.  129 Ohio St.3d 1409, 2011-Ohio-
3244, 949 N.E.2d 1004.  In her appeal, Carna asserts a single proposition: 
 
When a principal requests a meeting with the school board 
after being told in advance that her contract will not be renewed, 
the school board’s failure to provide a meeting prior to voting on 
the principal’s nonrenewal violates Section 3319.02(D)(4) of the 
January Term, 2012 
7 
 
Ohio Revised Code and requires automatic reinstatement of the 
principal pursuant to Section 3319.02(D)(5). 
 
We agree. 
ANALYSIS 
The Statutory Language 
{¶ 14} At the outset of our analysis, we begin with the statutory language 
of R.C. 3319.02, which is a remedial statute that must be construed liberally in 
favor of school administrators.  State ex rel. Cassels v. Dayton City School Dist. 
Bd. of Edn., 69 Ohio St.3d at 219,  631 N.E.2d 150, citing State ex rel. Smith v. 
Etheridge, 65 Ohio St.3d 501, 605 N.E.2d 59 (1992), syllabus. 
{¶ 15} The portion of the statute that is controlling here, R.C. 3319.02(D), 
establishes the procedural protections for school administrators and the protocols 
for facilitating the discussion between administrators and school boards about the 
renewal or nonrenewal of administrators’ contracts.  R.C. 3319.02(D)(4) states:  
 
Before taking action to renew or nonrenew the contract of 
an assistant superintendent, principal, assistant principal, or other 
administrator under this section and prior to the last day of March 
of the year in which such employee’s contract expires, the board 
shall notify each such employee of the date that the contract 
expires and that the employee may request a meeting with the 
board.  Upon request by such an employee, the board shall grant 
the employee a meeting in executive session.  In that meeting, the 
board shall discuss its reasons for considering renewal or 
nonrenewal of the contract.  The employee shall be permitted to 
have a representative, chosen by employee, present at the meeting. 
 
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{¶ 16} Thereafter, R.C. 3319.02(D)(5) states: 
 
Nothing in division (D) of this section shall prevent a board from 
making the final determination regarding the renewal or 
nonrenewal of the contract of any * * * administrator.  However, if 
a board fails to provide evaluations pursuant to division 
(D)(2)(c)(i) or (ii) of this section, or if the board fails to provide at 
the request of the employee a meeting as prescribed in division 
(D)(4) of this section, the employee automatically shall be 
reemployed at the same salary plus any increments that may be 
authorized by the board for a period of one year, except that if the 
employee has been employed by the district or service center as an 
assistant superintendent, principal, assistant principal, or other 
administrator for three years or more, the period of reemployment 
shall be for two years. 
 
{¶ 17} With the statutory language in mind, we proceed with the analysis 
of its meaning. 
Principles of Statutory Interpretation 
{¶ 18} Venerable principles of statutory construction require that in 
construing statutes, we must give effect to every word and clause in the statute.  
Boley v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 125 Ohio St.3d 510, 2010-Ohio-2550, 929 
N.E.2d 448, ¶ 21.  We must “read words and phrases in context and construe them 
in accordance with rules of grammar and common usage,” State ex rel. Russell v. 
Thornton, 111 Ohio St.3d 409, 2006-Ohio-5858, 856 N.E.2d 966, ¶ 11, and we 
may not restrict, constrict, qualify, narrow, enlarge, or abridge the General 
Assembly’s  wording,  Weaver v. Edwin Shaw Hosp., 104 Ohio St.3d 390, 2004-
Ohio-6549, 819 N.E.2d 1079, ¶ 13, quoting Wachendorf  v. Shaver, 149 Ohio St. 
January Term, 2012 
9 
 
231, 78 N.E.2d 370 (1948), paragraph five of the syllabus.  Instead, we must 
accord significance and effect to every word, phrase, sentence, and part of the 
statute, id., and abstain from inserting words where words were not placed by the 
General Assembly,  Cassels, 69 Ohio St.3d at 220, 631 N.E.2d 150, citing State v. 
S.R., 63 Ohio St.3d 590, 594-595, 589 N.E.2d 1319 (1992). 
{¶ 19} “No part [of the statute] should be treated as superfluous unless 
that is manifestly required, and the court should avoid that construction which 
renders a provision meaningless or inoperative.” State ex rel. Myers v. Spencer 
Twp. Rural School Dist. Bd. of Edn., 95 Ohio St. 367, 373, 116 N.E. 516 (1917).  
“Statutes must be construed, if possible, to operate sensibly and not to accomplish 
foolish results.”  State ex rel. Saltsman v. Burton, 154 Ohio St. 262, 268, 95 
N.E.2d 377 (1950). 
{¶ 20} When we conclude that a statute’s language is clear and 
unambiguous, we apply the statute as written, Cheap Escape Co., Inc. v. Haddox, 
L.L.C., 120 Ohio St.3d 493, 2008-Ohio-6323, 900 N.E.2d 601, ¶ 9, giving effect 
to its plain meaning,  Slingluff v. Weaver, 66 Ohio St. 621, 64 N.E. 574 (1902), 
paragraph two of the syllabus.  Here, we are presented with clear and 
unambiguous statutory language. 
Application to the Language of R.C. 3319.02(D) 
{¶ 21} The court of appeals held that Carna’s oral request on July 11, 
2007, for a meeting with the board did not constitute a proper request under the 
statute because the request must occur at a time reasonably related to the board’s 
impending decision.  2011-Ohio-1522, 2001 WL 1158643, at ¶ 15.  Thus, 
although Thompson gave Carna oral notice on July 11, 2007, that her contract 
would not be renewed, and although Carna immediately asked Thompson for a 
meeting with the board per R.C. 3319.02(D)(4), the appellate court held that the 
statute required Carna to request a meeting with the board after receiving the two 
written administrative evaluations that renotified her that her contract would not 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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be renewed.  2011-Ohio-1522, 2011 WL 1158643, ¶ 17.  The plain language used 
by the General Assembly in R.C. 3319.02, however, does not support the 
appellate court’s conclusion. 
{¶ 22} The court of appeals concluded that a request under R.C. 
3319.02(D)(4) must occur in the context of an impending contract renewal.  We 
agree generally, but find the statutory language, not the context of contract 
renewal, to control here. 
{¶ 23} Contrary to the appellate court’s conclusion, nothing in the 
language of the statute, which clearly contemplates the context of contract 
renewal, requires that the request for a meeting occur after the board makes a final 
evaluation and informs the administrator that the contract will not be renewed, 
and after the board gives the administrator notice of her right to request a hearing.  
Rather, R.C. 3319.02(D)(4) plainly and simply states that notice must be given 
“[b]efore taking action to renew or nonrenew the contract.”  There is no temporal 
restriction that requires the request for a meeting to occur at any given time, and 
no proper basis from which to conclude that the request for a meeting may not be 
made until after final evaluation.2  Had the General Assembly intended for the 
request for a meeting to be dependent on any temporal specificity, it would have 
included that specificity in the statute itself, as it did in other sections of this 
statute.  See, e.g., R.C. 3319.02(C) (mandating that decisions on the 
reemployment of any school administrator must be decided at “any regular or 
special meeting” before the last day of March in the year in which the contract is 
to expire). 
{¶ 24} The appellate court improperly included words in the statute that 
were not there and ignored words that were there.  Portage Cty. Bd. of Commrs. v. 
Akron, 109 Ohio St.3d 106, 2006-Ohio-954, 846 N.E.2d 478, ¶ 52.  We 
                                                     
 
2  Although R.C. 3319.02(D)(2) requires that certain performance evaluations be made, nothing in 
the statute ties the timing of the evaluations to the timing of the request for a meeting.  
January Term, 2012 
11 
 
previously have cautioned against “judicial legislation” by adding words to R.C. 
3319.02, and we reiterate that caution again. State ex rel. Kelly v. Clearcreek 
Local School Dist. Bd. of Edn., 52 Ohio St.3d 93, 95, 556 N.E.2d 173 (1990).  
The statutory language of R.C. 3319.02(D) required only that Carna request the 
meeting, not that she do so after a final evaluation and after the board notified her 
of her statutory right to the meeting. 
{¶ 25} Indeed, it is undisputed here that the board never gave Carna notice 
of her rights under R.C. 3319.02.  Thus, using the appellate courts’ reasoning, 
even today—four years after first being informed that her contract would not be 
renewed—Carna still would be unable to request the meeting.  The General 
Assembly certainly did not intend for such an absurd result. 
{¶ 26} We hold that upon an administrator learning that her contract will 
not be renewed, R.C. 3319.02(D) permits the administrator to request a meeting 
with the board to discuss the reasons for nonrenewal without having to await a 
final evaluation or notice from the board that she has the right to the hearing.  To 
hold otherwise would render R.C. 3319.02(D)’s provisions meaningless.  Cf. 
Phillips v. W. Holmes Local School Dist. Bd. of Edn., Fifth Dist.. No. CA-407, 
1990 WL 41584, *2. 
{¶ 27} Finally, we disagree with the appellate court that our interpretation 
of R.C. 3319.02(D) is ripe for gamesmanship and means that “an administrator 
could request a meeting with the board the day after the administrator is hired 
under a two-year contract, then sit on that right until the board takes action on the 
contract, only to then complain that the board failed to honor the request for a 
meeting made nearly two years earlier.”  2011-Ohio-1522, 2011 WL 1158643, 
¶ 15. 
{¶ 28} R.C. 3319.02(D)(4) requires the board to meet in executive session 
with the administrator to discuss the reasons for nonrenewal only after an 
administrator has been informed that her contract will not be renewed, and only 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
12 
 
after being so informed  may an administrator request a meeting with the school 
board to discuss the nonrenewal of her contract.  That is precisely what happened 
here. 
{¶ 29} After two favorable evaluations in the first year of her contract, 
Carna was placed on administrative leave pending an ODE investigation into 
allegations that she improperly altered achievement test answers and was orally 
told in July 2007 by Thompson, an assistant superintendent who had previously 
evaluated her work, that her contract would not be renewed.  Upon that first 
notice of nonrenewal, Carna requested a meeting with the board.  Five months 
later, Thompson confirmed in writing what he had initially told Carna:  her 
contract would not be renewed.3  That written notice may have satisfied the 
board’s obligations under R.C. 3319.02 (D)(2)(a), but the board still failed to 
satisfy its obligation under R.C. 3319.02(D)(4), which states that “the board shall 
grant the employee a meeting in executive session.”4   Given the context in which 
Carna’s claim arises, i.e., one in which the administrator requests an R.C. 
3319.02(D)(4) meeting after she is told that her contract will not be renewed, our 
holding is proper.  We intimate no opinion about the starkly different hypothetical 
scenario described by the court of appeals. 
 
 
                                                     
 
3   In fact, in the December 2007 evaluation, Thompson expressly referred to his prior oral 
statements to Carna, noting: 
 
Stacey Carna is in the second year of a two year contract.  Kyle Wolfe and I 
met with Stacey Carna in early June to discuss her status with the district.  At this 
meeting Stacey was told she would not return to the district for the 2007-08 school 
year and at the conclusion of her contract she would not be recommended for 
another contract. Stacey was also told that she would remain on paid administrative 
leave pending Ohio Department of Education investigation and outcome. 
 
(Emphasis added.)   
 
4  Although the board voted not to renew Carna’s contract on March 17, 2008, in a routine, 
regularly scheduled, public meeting, that meeting did not fulfill the board’s obligation under R.C. 
3319.02(D)(4), which requires that the requested meeting be held in executive session.    
January Term, 2012 
13 
 
CONCLUSION 
{¶ 30} R.C. 3319.02(D) sets forth the procedural protections available to 
school administrators during the decision-making process on the nonrenewal of 
their employment contracts with boards of education.  Carna presented evidence 
that she requested those protections but that her request was not honored by the 
board.  The General Assembly has determined that if the administrator requests 
that such a meeting be held, the board must hold it in executive session to discuss 
the renewal or nonrenewal of the contract.  There is no legislative command that 
the request for a meeting occur after administrative evaluations are complete.  
Thus, we must reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and vacate the 
summary judgment against Carna.  We remand this cause to the common pleas 
court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
Judgment reversed 
and cause remanded. 
PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, CUPP, and 
MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur. 
__________________ 
The Gittes Law Group, Frederick M. Gittes, and Jeffrey P. Vardaro, for 
appellant. 
Williams & Petro Co., L.L.C., Richard A. Williams, and Susan S. R. 
Petro, for appellee. 
Manos, Martin, Pergram & Deitz Co., L.P.A., and Dennis L. Pergram, 
urging reversal for amici curiae Ohio Association of Elementary School 
Administrators and Ohio Association of Secondary School Administrators. 
______________________