Opinion ID: 1764342
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Marshall Garneau :

Text: Marshall Garneau is licensed in Minnesota to teach social studies at the secondary level (grades 7-12). He was first employed by the Minneapolis school district in January 1970 as a long and short-call reserve teacher. From January through July 1970, he taught at the Hennepin County Home School for Delinquents in Glen Lake as a long-term substitute. After a semester of short-term assignments in the fall of 1970, Garneau was assigned in January 1971 to Nokomis Junior High School as an itinerant social studies teacher. [7] Since that time he has served in a variety of regular and itinerant junior high school social studies positions, most in traditional classroom settings. Garneau taught through the 1977-78 school year, at the end of which the district discontinued a number of secondary social studies positions. As one of the least senior teachers in that department, Garneau was terminated pursuant to section 125.17, subd. 11. He contends that he should have then been recalled under the same statute to one of two or three federally funded positions which became available in the fall of 1978. These positions, two in the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) Youth Employment Program and one in the Emergency School Aid Act (ESAA) Dropout Prevention Program, involved work with disadvantaged students to promote completion of high school and facilitate the return to school of students who have left. The district has a dual policy regarding recall of terminated teachers. For positions in the department from which the teachers were terminated, the district recalls qualified teachers in order of seniority, without reapplication by the teachers. However, in filling vacancies for special assignments (nonclassroom positions), the district posts the positions and notifies the terminated teachers individually. Teachers meeting the specified qualifications are invited to apply, and applicants are interviewed and hired upon the recommendation of a screening committee. Seniority, therefore, is not the controlling consideration in such cases. When the two CETA positions were funded for the 1978-79 school year, the district first assigned two science teachers, James Foster and Jeffrey Holmes, to the positions. In making those assignments, the district followed neither of its recall policies since Foster and Holmes were still under contract. Both Foster and Holmes had less seniority than Garneau, and neither had special qualifications for the positions. Later, one of the CETA positions again became available. At that point the district recalled Drake Anderson, a teacher who had occupied the CETA job during the spring and summer of 1978 while he was a teacher on itinerant contract with the district. Anderson had originally been assigned the CETA position because he had served for 2 years in the Teacher Corps in a position that involved contact and special training with disadvantaged students. The district did not post the CETA position or seek applications for it, although Anderson may have been recalled strictly on seniority. It is not clear from the record whether he or Garneau is the more senior teacher. Still later, when a third position was funded (the ESAA position), the district posted the vacancy and solicited applications for it. Kirk Nelson, the teacher who had taught in the CETA program with Anderson during the spring and summer of 1978, was recalled to that position. Although Garneau had more seniority than Nelson, Nelson had 8 years' experience with students who had left or were considering leaving school before the completion of their high school education. Garneau was notified of this position and told how to apply for it; however, he did not apply and was not offered the position. Garneau contends that he should have been offered one of the three federally funded positions, based on his right of recall under Minn.Stat. § 125.17, subd. 11. Garneau argues that this subdivision establishes an absolute policy of seniority, not only for termination but for recall, and that the district is required to limit its consideration to seniority and teaching licensure. Therefore, the most senior teacher with the requisite license has a right of first refusal without regard to special qualifications. The school district, on the other hand, argues that terminated teachers must be given consideration before other applicants but need not be offered the position if another applicant has superior qualifications. The district acknowledges at the outset that a qualified teacher, as defined by section 125.04, is one holding a valid license    to perform the particular service for which he is employed in a public school. Therefore, for purposes of section 125.17, subd. 11, Garneau is qualified for the CETA and ESAA positions because he holds the required secondary teaching license and must be given first consideration for the positions. The issue to be resolved, then, is the meaning of first consideration. The district argues that the term first consideration can be interpreted by consulting Black's Law Dictionary, which defines first as [p]receding all others; foremost and defines consider as [t]o fix the mind on    [t]o deliberate about and ponder over. Black's Law Dictionary 571, 277 (5th ed. 1979). The district concludes that the statute requires it simply to evaluate a more senior teacher before considering other applicants but that the district retains discretion, when filling a special position, to reject a more senior teacher in favor of one who has the special qualifications required for that position. The district further maintains that this is, in fact, the procedure which it followed in filling the CETA and ESAA slots. Garneau arrives at his conclusion that he has a right of first refusal by examining the history of the two separate sentences of the statute in question. The first sentence, which addresses the recall situation, was enacted prior to Ging. In Ging, this court decided that, when reducing its staff because of a decline in enrollment, a school district could terminate senior teachers while allowing junior teachers to remain. Shortly after Ging, the legislature added the second sentence, which requires that a district lay off its teachers in any department in inverse order of seniority. Garneau maintains that this strict seniority provision must also apply to recalls, that it was the intent of the legislature to graft the layoff policy of the second sentence onto the plain meaning of the first sentence. The trial court determined that section 125.17, subd. 11, was ambiguous and then looked to the legislative history to bolster its conclusion that Garneau should have been offered the CETA and ESAA positions by reason of his seniority. We see no ambiguity in this subdivision, however, and find that the legislative history supports a different conclusion. While it is clear that the addition of the second sentence shortly after the Ging decision was intended to establish seniority as the basis for determining the order of teacher terminations, we reject Garneau's argument that the amendment established a broad requirement that all employment decisions be handled on the basis of seniority, without the exercise of judgment and discretion on the part of the local board of education. Ging did not involve recall of terminated teachers; and the first sentence of section 125.17, subd. 11, which contains the sole statutory reference to the recall rights of terminated teachers, was not changed by the legislature. In fact, the legislature specifically considered and rejected language that would have provided an absolute right of recall in order of seniority: Teachers whose positions are so discontinued shall have the right to assignment in any other position in the school system for which they are certified in order of their original appointment. The quoted language was included in the original text of the bill to amend the subdivision but was rejected by the first Senate committee to consider the bill. A comparison of the rejected language with the language of the first sentence of the subdivision clearly demonstrates that the legislature did not intend that terminated teachers have a right of first refusal in order of seniority. The legislature considered such a change but obviously chose to retain the more flexible requirement of first consideration. Furthermore, even if first consideration were interpreted to provide for a right of first refusal, nothing in the first sentence of section 125.17, subd. 11, provides for consideration in order of seniority. The sentence gives any teacher whose services are terminated on account of discontinuance of position a right to first consideration for other positions. Nothing in the sentence gives Garneau priority by reason of his seniority over Nelson and Anderson, who also were qualified, terminated teachers. To give any  that is, each  qualified, terminated teacher a right of first refusal for each available position is impossible. On the other hand, it would be reasonable to provide that each such teacher would receive consideration before applicants who were not terminated pursuant to section 125.17, subd. 4(5). Examination of the tenure law applicable to districts not in cities of the first class (section 125.12) lends further support to our interpretation. Section 125.12, subd. 6a, provides for negotiated plans for unrequested leave of absence. Districts in which the school board and teachers have not negotiated such a plan are governed by section 125.12, subd. 6b, which provides in pertinent part: The school board may place on unrequested leave of absence, without pay or fringe benefits, as many teachers as may be necessary because of discontinuance of position, lack of pupils, financial limitations, or merger of classes caused by consolidation of districts.    In placing teachers on unrequested leave, the board shall be governed by the following provisions:       (b) Teachers who have acquired continuing contract rights shall be placed on unrequested leave of absence in fields in which they are licensed in the inverse order in which they were employed by the school district.       (d) Teachers placed on unrequested leave of absence shall be reinstated to the positions from which they have been given leaves of absence or, if not available, to other available positions in the school district in fields in which they are licensed. Reinstatement shall be in the inverse order of placement on leave of absence. The order of reinstatement of teachers who have equal seniority and who are placed on unrequested leave in the same school year shall be negotiable[.] These provisions set out in detail the rights of terminated teachers [8] to be reinstated in order of seniority to the positions they formerly held or to other available positions in fields in which they are licensed, but section 125.12, subd. 13, expressly makes section 125.12 inapplicable to cities of the first class. The difference between the provisions of sections 125.12 and 125.17 demonstrates that the legislature can provide explicitly for terminated teachers to be recalled in order of seniority. The absence of such an explicit provision in section 125.17 strongly suggests that this right of recall was not intended in that section. We do not find it illogical, as Garneau suggests, that the legislature chose to apply seniority in terminating teachers from positions in which they have established themselves but chose not to extend the application of seniority to the recall of teachers for positions in which they may have had no experience. We have recognized the importance of the discretion vested in the school board to administer the school and to decide who is best suited to fill educational positions. Foesch, 300 Minn. at 485, 223 N.W.2d at 375; Frisk v. Board of Education, 246 Minn. 366, 380-81, 75 N.W.2d 504, 513-14 (1956); Ging, 213 Minn. at 572-73, 7 N.W.2d at 556-67. In this case, the policy reasons for rejecting an absolute right of recall are especially apparent. Anderson and Nelson possess experience and training for the unique and difficult tasks associated with the CETA and ESAA positions  experience and training which Garneau does not equal. Furthermore, Anderson and Nelson themselves occupied the two CETA positions during the 1977-78 school year. It would seem contrary to wise educational policy to assure Garneau one of these positions simply because of his seniority. In the absence of an express statutory provision, we do not agree with the trial court that educational quality can be so subordinated to seniority. [9] The fact that the federal government requires only a secondary teaching license does not preclude the district from evaluating other credentials of the candidates to insure effective performance in these important alternative educational positions. Garneau expresses concern that, if the district retains any discretion in the matter of recall, the right of first consideration is illusory. The provision, however, does not accord the district unbridled discretion. The district must be able to show that qualified, terminated teachers were given careful consideration before all other applicants and that a demonstrable reason based upon a comparison of qualifications existed for refusal. [10] We have some concerns about the arbitrary shifting of two contract teachers into these federally funded positions without first evaluating their special qualifications, but that decision was not governed by the recall statute and is not challenged by Garneau. Since Anderson and Nelson were highly qualified for the positions which became available in October and November, the school board properly exercised its discretion in reinstating them to those positions. However, in this time of declining school populations and restricted budgets, we recognize the opportunities for abuse of discretion in situations such as this and encourage school districts to develop careful and rational procedures for reinstating their teachers to jobs which require special qualifications. We hold that section 125.17, subd. 11, does not establish an absolute right of recall in order of seniority for terminated teachers and that Garneau was therefore not entitled to the CETA or ESAA positions. The order and judgment of the district court are reversed.