Court Opinion

ID: 9737952
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:38:02.54286+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:02.722076
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Justice
(dissenting).
SDCL 13-43-10 provides in part that:
“* * * failure to give such written notice on or before said date [April 1] shall constitute an offer on the part of the board to renew the contract for the ensuing school year under the same terms and conditions as the contract for the then current year. Different terms and conditions may be mutually agreed upon by the board and teacher at any later time.”
Appellant did not receive for the year 1973-74 a contract under the same terms and conditions as his 1972-73 contract. In order to give any meaning to the last sentence of SDCL 13-43-10, supra, he was entitled by operation of law to the same contract that he had for the then current year. The continuing contract law is a limitation upon the power of a school district to contract with its teachers. Carlson v. School Dist. No. 6 of Maricopa County, 12 Ariz.App. 179, 468 P.2d 944. By failing to comply with the continuing contract statutes, defendant school board waived its opportunity to make unilateral changes in defendant’s contract based upon occurrences preceding the dates on which appellant was entitled to notice under the statutes.* Whether a school board has power to assign teachers to particular classes and to particular schools when unforeseen exigencies arise subsequent to the effective date of a teacher’s contract is a question not before us.
*645If appellant’s conduct was so egregious that it rendered him unfit for further teaching duties, the school board had adequate remedies pursuant to SDCL 13-43-13 and 13-43-15. Having elected not to proceed under the provisions of SDCL 13-43-9.1 and 13-43-10, the school board should be bound by its election and prohibited from unilaterally modifying appellant’s statutorily vested contract on the basis of circumstances known by the school board to have existed prior to the time appellant was entitled to notice under the continuing contract statutes.
I would hold that appellant was entitled to the relief he sought.

 That the school board discussed the contract with appellant on several occasions is irrelevant. Blood v. Spring Creek Number 12, Common School District, 78 S.D. 580, 105 N.W.2d 545.