Court Opinion

ID: 9687631
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:39:57.801857+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:29.470860
License: Public Domain

WUEST, Justice
(dissenting).
The purpose of teacher evaluation statutes is to provide feedback to teachers “so that they can attempt to improve themselves[.]” Fries v. Wessington Sch. Dist. No. 2-4, 307 N.W.2d 875, 879 (S.D.1981). As noted in the majority opinion, “once a school board has adopted a rule or regulation, such as with teacher evaluations, it has the force of law.” Schaub v. Chamberlain Bd. of Educ., 339 N.W.2d 307, 310 (S.D.1983) (citing Dale v. Board of Educ., Lemmon Ind. Sch. Dist. 52-2, 316 N.W.2d 108, 113 (S.D.1982); Schnabel v. Alcester Sch. Dist. No. 61-1, 295 N.W.2d 340, 341 (S.D.1980)). The result reached by the circuit court in this case and affirmed by the majority opinion allows a school board to violate its own policies and use the resulting evaluations for purposes other than providing feedback for teacher improvement.
The record shows that principal Patterson graduated from Wall High School, and later taught at the Wall High School for eight years. After serving as a principal in Philip, South Dakota for three years, he returned to Wall as high school principal in 1990. Patterson’s sister-in-law — his brother’s wife (referred to only as “Mrs. Patterson”) — teaches at the high school.1 According to Iversen’s testimony, Mrs. Patterson was a part-time teacher of home economics and English for many years. Iversen testified- that Mrs. Patterson was recently made a full-time teacher, stating:
[N]ow [Mrs. Patterson] is teaching a full load of English classes, teaching classes that I have taught for years. And for the second semester of this year I’ve only been assigned two class[es]. And to me it looks like my classes were taken from me and given to [Mrs. Patterson] so that she would be a full-time teacher for sure and possibly I would be either fired or reduced to half time.
*195Iversen was assigned to teach upper level English electives, for which few students registered for the 1991-92 school year.2 The Wall school district’s staff reduction policy allows various criteria to be considered in determining which professional staff could be laid off, including evaluation records.
The circuit court announced its findings and conclusions from the bench. The trial judge found that the Department was in error and that it was “a clear violation of the [public complaint] policy” and that “anonymous or unsubstantiated complaints” could not be considered in the evaluation process. Further, any comments or consideration of Iversen’s use of sick leave were not to be considered in the evaluation process. Thus, the circuit court ordered that any comments on the evaluation that could be construed to have originated from the anonymous complaints or sick leave concerns must be expunged. This was proper.
A review of the record shows that Patterson’s first observation of Iversen’s teaching took place on December 4, 1990. Patterson held a preobservation conference wherein discussion took place regarding specific items to be observed. Patterson observed a French class for 46 minutes. The written observation record is detailed. In his comments section Patterson states:
Time on task was good.
All the students were involved in the class. The class moved from one activity to another without delay.
Repetition is a good technique for students to remember the work.
I did not hear a review of information.
No objectives were given for the class.
(Emphasis added.) Although Patterson states that the December postobservation conference also served as the preobservation conference for the subsequent (second) observation, the record does not indicate (other than the comments shown above) what he would be looking for in the next observation. The second observation took place approximately four and one-half months later, on April 24, 1991. Patterson attended the class for 34 minutes, was not present for the first 15 minutes of the class and left before the end of the period. Patterson’s postobservation notes state in part that:
Student involvement was limited to only a few. The class is teacher dominated in that the teacher does most of the talking. At least one student did not join in at all.
In the evaluation instrument, Patterson states that, “There was not a lot of student participation in the classes that I observed” and marked Iversen as “needs improvement” on Item 11(C), “Stimulates thought and interest.” Clearly, this conflicts with Patterson’s notes regarding the December observation that “All the students were involved in the class.” Additionally, in spite of the fact that Patterson admittedly had no idea what Iver-sen was trying to accomplish in the April 24 class, she was marked as “needs improvement” on Items III(D) and (E) — “Utilizes different instruction approaches” and “Designs and uses appropriate questions to elicit student responses.” Patterson again commented that the class was “teacher dominated.”
The circuit court criticized principal Patterson’s evaluation method wherein Patterson combined the December postobservation conference with the subsequent preobservation conference. The court stated:
There’s a weakness in the method he selected. It doesn’t go to the validity, it just goes to the weight or credibility or the value you’re going to place on the evaluator who comes in, not knowing what he’s coming into and what is trying to be accomplished.... When he didn’t know what he was walking into what she was trying to accomplish, he comes up with this teacher domination theory and so on. He doesn’t have an understanding of what she’s trying to accomplish.
Nevertheless, the circuit court held that Patterson could write down his observations — in spite of the fact that the principal/evaluator *196had no idea or understanding of what the teacher was trying to accomplish in that class period — and place these critical comments in the teacher’s permanent evaluation file.
This result makes a mockery of teacher evaluation systems, and ignores our stated purposes of teacher evaluation. No teacher can “attempt to improve” herself or himself when the evaluative comments and “feedback” are based on a complete lack of understanding of what was to be accomplished during the class period. Fries, 307 N.W.2d at 879. The result reached in this opinion allows a school administrator to observe 34 minutes of a class period out of a 175-day school year, reach invalid conclusions, and then place those criticisms in a teacher’s file — to subsequently be used for whatever purpose the administrator or school board desires. The legislature specifically mandated that school boards adopt an “official evaluation policy” so that these tools could be used to encourage professional growth. SDCL 13-43-26. Professional growth of teachers in this state will not result if evaluations can be carried out in the manner shown herein. Thus, I respectfully dissent.
AMUNDSON, J., joins this dissent.

. Principal Patterson's wife also teaches fourth grade in the Wall school district.

. Although the record does not indicate the enrollment at Wall High School, we can take judicial notice that the 1992-93 enrollment at the school was 90 students, with 18 graduating seniors. Executive Summary: 1993 South Dakota School Report Card Program, South Dakota Dep’t of Educ. (1993).