Case Name: L. M. RIBLE, Appellant, v. CHARLES C. HUGHES, as Superintendent of Schools, etc., et al., Respondents
Court: Supreme Court of California
Jurisdiction: California
Decision Date: 1944-07-05
Citations: 24 Cal. 2d 437
Docket Number: Sac. No. 5638
Parties: L. M. RIBLE, Appellant, v. CHARLES C. HUGHES, as Superintendent of Schools, etc., et al., Respondents.
Judges: 
Reporter: California Reports
Volume: 24
Pages: 437–453

Head Matter:
[Sac. No. 5638.
In Bank.
July 5, 1944.]
L. M. RIBLE, Appellant, v. CHARLES C. HUGHES, as Superintendent of Schools, etc., et al., Respondents.
Anthony J. Kennedy and Carl Kuchman for Appellant.
Ray C. Eberhard, Robert A. Odell and Elisabeth Eberhard Zeigler as Amici Curiae on behalf of Appellant.
Otis D. Babcock, District Attorney, John Quincy Brown, District Attorney, and William A. Green, Assistant District Attorney, for Respondents.
J. H. O’Connor, County Counsel (Los Angeles), and Beach Vasey, Deputy County Counsel, as Amici Curiae on behalf of Respondents.

Opinion:
EDMONDS, J.
The Teacher's Salary Schedules of the Sacramento City Schools, effective in 1935, provide that each year, in establishing the salaries of a permanent teacher, the amount payable to him for the ensuing twelve months shall be less than his compensation for the prior school term if he does not maintain his professional efficiency by graduate study. Lilly May Bible, a teacher subject to the schedule, refused to take any course of instruction and her salary was fixed at the amount specified for those who do not comply with the requirement. Thereafter she sought by writ of mandate to compel the payment of the amount to which she would be entitled had she earned additional educational credits, and her appeal is from a judgment adverse to her contentions.
Miss Bible graduated from Stanford University in 1912 and since that year has been a teacher of English in the Sacramento Senior High School. After nine years of service, she was classified as a permanent teacher and in 1932 she received a life diploma, authorizing her to teach English in the public high schools of California. That diploma is in full force and effect and no proceedings have been taken to suspend, reduce or transfer her. (Sch. Code, § 5.650 et seq.) In summer recesses commencing in 1929, Miss Bible traveled abroad, doing research work and collecting data pertaining to English literature. By her travels she accumulated, in accordance with the Rules of the Board of Education of the City of Sacramento in effect until 1935, 40 or 50 "rating credits. ' '
During the school year 1933-34 the Board of Education of the City of Sacramento directed its conference bureau, composed of executives of the school department, to study, for the purpose of revision, the existing salary schedules of certificated employees of the Sacramento city schools. After considerable investigation, the conference bureau reached the conclusion that new schedules, based upon certain stated principles, should be adopted. It was agreed that salaries of elementary and high school teachers should be on a basis definitely to encourage additional training. In place of automatic advances in salary it was decided that increased compensation should be uniformly granted upon an evaluation of initial training, teaching experience, and additional professional study obtained by regular attendance at an institution of four-year college rank accredited by the State Department of Education. The conference also declared that teachers reaching the maximum salary should be stimulated - to maintain their professional proficiency by continued training, and for the purpose of making this effective, it provided for a salary penalty to be imposed upon those failing to do so .within a reasonable length of time.
The principles stated by the conference bureau were approved by the board of education and, in the main, were acceptable to representatives of the various teacher groups with whom they were discussed. Accordingly, a new salary schedule interpreting this "practical philosophy" of the teaching profession was promulgated. A minimum salary of $1,548 is fixed for a teacher in a senior high school. In the fifth year of service this salary is automatically increased to $1,836. If the teacher, after having been employed for five years, has completed the study requirement, he is entitled to an annual increment of $96 in each of the next five years "of service. Likewise, after the tenth year, the salary is raised only if the teacher has obtained credit for six additional semester units. One who is eligible for all of the advances authorized by the schedule is entitled to $2,700 as salary for the fourteenth year of teaching. The maximum of $2,748 for the fifteenth and subsequent years is attainable only after having concluded further courses of study. '
Consistently with the principles stated by the conference bureau, the salary schedule also provides that if a teacher, during the first five years of her employment as a permanent teacher, has not carried on her professional training by study in residence at an accredited institution, commencing with the sixth year "the salary will be decreased by one annual increment each year until the condition is met, whereupon one annual increment per year shall be restored until the maximum is again reached." A similar condition is imposed at the end of the tenth and fourteenth years of service, and the same requirement is made for the retention of the maximum salary specified after fifteen years of service.
According to the schedules, a conditional increase in salary is allowed when "six semester units shall have been completed in courses open to under-graduates, or four semester units in courses open only to graduates, in an institution or institutions of four-year college rank accredited by the State Department of Education. This work must be done in residence. In conformity with this principle, the Superintendent will prepare a set of written standards against which training taken to meet the conditions for advancement on these schedules will be judged."
On July 1, 1935, the effective date of the new schedules, Miss Bible was receiving an annual salary of $2,700. Having failed during the succeeding four school years to comply with the additional training requirement, on July 1, 1939, her salary was reduced to $2,604 and, on July 1, 1940, to $2,508. By a petition for a writ of mandate, she then demanded that the Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools of the City of Sacramento authorize the payment of salary to her at the rate of $2,748 per year commencing July 1, 1939. This is the compensation to which she would be entitled had she met the requirement for additional training upon which the increase to that amount was conditioned. The trial court determined that the schedules are not in conflict with the provisions of the School Code fixing the qualification of a teacher in the high school nor of the rules and regulations of the State Board of Education and denied her any relief. The appeal is from that judgment.
As grounds for reversal of the judgment, the appellant urges that the conditions of the salary schedules are unreasonable, arbitrary and discriminatory. But, she asserts, conceding that the board of education did not abuse its discretion, it had no power to adopt the rules to which she takes exception for section 5.734 of the School Code requires that salaries must be uniform and based upon years of training and experience. She also contends that the rules are arbitrary and unreasonable in that they delegate to subordinates the discretion to determine the studies a teacher must pursue. And, as the school board cannot discharge her without cause because of contract and tenure rights (Sch. Code, § 5.650), it is seeking to do indirectly that which it cannot do directly. ' Moreover, she continues, disciplinary action for a failure to comply with the rules is inconsistent with the legal rights of a permanent teacher.
Other points presented by the appellant are that, conceding for the purposes of argument that the conditions of the 1935 salary schedules were lawfully adopted and reasonable, there are fundamental principles of law which prevent their application to her. Miss Bible contends that her salary is governed by a contract, entered into between herself and the school board in 1921, which requires payment of a salary amounting to $2,700 a year. Under the provisions of section 5.401 of the School Code, she insists, a teacher's contract of employment is automatically renewed upon the same terms and conditions as existed for the previous year, and a bilateral contract may be modified only by mutual assent. Therefore, the appellant reasons, the automatic reduction in her salary in 1939 was a unilateral act which cannot affect the bilateral agreement by which the board promised to pay her $2,700 per year. This conclusion, she says, is supported by the statutes relating to tenure and the rules and regulations of a local school board are of no effect where inconsistent with the School Code. Because the School Code delegates to the State Board of Education the power to prescribe and determine the qualifications of teachers, it follows, she contends, that the jurisdiction is an exclusive one and the rules of the Sacramento board are void because they impose training qualifications additional to those required by the School Code or the rules of the state body.
In support of the judgment in their favor, the respondents declare that the challenged rules are not contrary to any statutory provision. In effect, they say, the rules do no more than provide that teachers shall be compensated according to their training and experience. And the respondents deny that the rules are unreasonable and arbitrary, or beyond the authority of the board to enact.
Notwithstanding Miss Bible's assertions, the controversy does not concern either the validity of her teaching credential or her tenure of position; the narrow issue is whether the board of education may each year fix the salary of all certificated employees upon the basis that those teachers who continue professional training are more qualified persons than the ones who do not do so and entitled to compensation accordingly. More particularly, the question is: may the compensation of those teachers who are unwilling or unable to progress by the completion .of a course of study once in four years properly be placed at a lower amount because of their lesser worth in the educational field.
The rules and regulations of a city or county school board, in effect at the date of the making or renewal of a teacher's contract of employment, are integral parts of it. (Kacsur v. Board of Trustees, 18 Cal.2d 586 [116 P.2d 593] ; Fry v. Board of Education, 17 Cal.2d 753 [112 P.2d 229]; Abraham, v. Sims, 2 Cal.2d 698 [42 P.2d 1029]; Fidler v. Board of Trustees, 112 CaL.App. 296 [296 P. 912].) Miss Bible's last written agreement, executed in 1921, was designated a "Salary Contract" and it provided that she was elected "under section 1609" of the Political Code "in accordance with salary schedule adopted by the Board." Under the provisions of section 1609 of the Political Code, the pertinent provisions of which are now embodied in sections 5.401 and 5.500 of the School Code, the contract of employment of a permanent teacher is automatically renewed from year to year upon the same terms unless, prior to renewal, the school board acts to change such terms. It follows, therefore, that upon the automatic renewal of Miss Bible's contract for the school year 1935-36, it was subject to the new salary schedule and rules adopted July 1, 1935, unless the board had no authority to adopt them or its acts in doing so constituted an abuse of discretion.
Section 5.731 of the School Code provides that city and county boards of education have the power to fix and order paid the compensation of school teachers. The section has been interpreted accordingly. (Kacsur v. Board of Trustees, supra; Fry v. Board of Education, supra; Abraham v. Sims, supra; Fidler v. Board of Trustees, supra.) In recognizing the power of a board to fix teachers' salaries under the provisions of section 5.731, the court, in the Kacsur case, reiterated "that a permanent teacher has no vested right to a particular salary and that such salary may be changed by the administrative authority," subject to the qualification "that the fixing of salaries must not be discriminatory, arbitrary or unreasonable." In the Pry case it was said that, "within the limits fixed by the School Code, the Board has discretionary control over the salaries of teachers." A restriction upon the authority in that regard, said the court, is the legislative requirement that "within reasonable limits, the principle of uniformity of treatment as to salary for those performing like services with like experience" must be observed but this limitation "does not prevent the Board from making reasonable classifications." In the Sims case, it was said that, although the Legislature intended to give teachers a permanency of tenure, it did not give any "assurance against change in salary. . . . The power of the trustees to raise or reduce the salaries of permanent teachers cannot be doubted, provided it is reasonably exercised and no attempt is made after the beginning of any particular school year to reduce the salaries for that year." According to these decisions, then, a board of education may exercise its discretion in adopting salary schedules fixing the compensation to be paid to permanent teachers although (1) the schedule must be adopted prior to the beginning of the school year; (2) any allowance based upon years of training and experience must be uniform, and subject to reasonable classification ; and (3) the schedule must not be arbitrary, discriminatory or unreasonable.
In the present case, the salary schedules fix the rate of compensation in accordance with stated conditions. They apply generally to all certificated employees. At his option, a teacher may, by obtaining additional educational credits, from time to time qualify for additional salary. If he does not choose to do so, the board of education rates his worth to the school district at a lesser amount than one who enlarges his educational experience. In short, the salary schedules merely provide that a teacher is to be compensated in accordance with training and experience.
Certainly this is a desirable procedure. Miss Bible has not been singled out for particular or arbitrary action and the rules do not impose a penalty in the legal sense of that term but set up a standard of salary to be paid each year. There is no basis for the assertion that the board, by adopting the schedules, attempted to do indirectly what section 5.650 of the School Code, providing against dismissal of permanent teachers without cause, prohibited it from doing directly. The fixing of a lower salary for one who has not taken a course of study during four years is not a dismissal without cause, nor do the rules impose training requirements upon permanent teachers, in addition to those prescribed by the State Board of Education, as a condition precedent to employment.
These considerations apply with equal force to the appellant's remaining contention that the schedules and their conditions are unreasonable, arbitrary and discriminatory. If reasonable minds may well be divided as to the wisdom of an administrative board's action, its action is conclusive. Or, stated another way, if there appears to be some reasonable basis for the classification, a court will not substitute its judgment for that of the administrative body. (Gabrielli v. Knickerbocker, 12 Cal.2d 85 [82 P.2d 391]; Monahan v. Department of Water and Power, 48 Cal.App.2d 746 [120 P.2d 730].) The completion of a course of study one summer out of each four has a reasonable relation to a teacher's ability to discharge his professional duties. Although such training may not benefit all teachers equally, the basis of our educational system is that study enlarges one's capacity for accomplishment and leadership in any activity. Very certainly, a permanent teacher of long service, such as Miss Bible, who so far as the record shows, during more than 30 years of school work has not been in touch with any other phase of education than her own teaching, would benefit from college study not only with respect to the specific subjects for which she received credit but also from contact with modern educational processes. The Sacramento salary schedules are based upon this self-evident fact, and the determination of the board of education that compensation should be fixed each year in accordance with an estimation of ability is a reasonable one and, therefore, conclusive upon the courts.
Nor is it true that the schedules are discriminatory in their application to the appellant. As emphasized, the difference in salary payments to permanent teachers performing the same duties is based upon a reasonable classification: that of fixing salaries upon the basis of training. Although it would appear that, as Miss Bible asserts, section 5.734 of the School Code requires uniformity in any schedule of salaries making allowance for years of training and service, nevertheless, uniformity is not violated by a reasonable classification. (Fry v. Board of Education, supra.) And the fact that the superintendent did not "prepare a set of written standards against which training . . . will be judged, ' ' as required by the rules annexed to the 1935 schedules (Bulletin, p. 10), but, rather, delegated to the principal of the high school the power to so determine, does not support Miss Bible's claim that the administration of the rule was arbitrary. She did not refuse to study because no particular courses had been prescribed by the superintendent but upon the ground that she considered herself "qualified to teach, and those rules were what we might call coercion and rather foolish ones."
The judgment is affirmed.
Gibson, 0. J., Traynor, J., and Schauer, J., concurred.