Court Opinion

ID: 9570305
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:22:12.448261+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:05:40.405958
License: Public Domain

*436Brachtenbach, J.
(dissenting) — The majority holds that a school board decision to hire a part-time teacher is the same as a school board decision to hire a full-time teacher. Such former part-time teacher becomes a full-time teacher with a vested right to continue thereafter as a full-time teacher upon identical contract terms, absent cause for nonrenewal. RCW 28A.67.070. In other words, the result of the majority's holding is that when a school board decides that a teacher is qualified to teach part-time, they are really deciding that when there is a full-time vacancy, the board has already hired the full-time teacher, for the initial year and for all future years under the continuing contract law.
The majority speculates that the unilateral decision of a part-time teacher to transfer to a full-time position is not an employment decision because "[t]he transfer to a full-time position merely changes the teacher's work hours and salary."
There is absolutely nothing in the record to support this speculative conclusion. The only relevant evidence in the record is an affidavit of the District's personnel director. His affidavit points out that the need for part-time teachers is in most instances not determined until sometime during the school year. A smaller pool of applicants is then available than in the summer when most full-time positions are filled. His affidavit, uncontradicted, is that at that stage the District has already chosen the best candidates for full-time positions and that because of the smaller pool and the immediate need for a part-time teacher, the screening is not the same as for full-time teachers. Further, the part-time hires "have not in general been as of high a quality as would be available when the District normally fills its full-time vacancies during the summer vacation period." Clerk's Papers, at 120. The personnel director concludes: "[tjhus, in many instances the District would not have hired the part-time teachers on a full-time basis and this has been a long-standing practice and policy of the District." Clerk's Papers, at 120.
*437Despite the majority's conclusion, this case actually is simply a question of determining legislative intent. The majority and I agree that "the power to hire is a nondele-gable prerogative of the board." Majority, at 432. That conclusion is inescapable. The statute and practice is absolutely clear: "No teacher . . . shall be employed except by written order of a majority of the directors of the district" and the contract is "limited to a term of not more than one year." RCW 28A.67.070.
Likewise, the majority and I agree that " [a] school board may not divest itself of powers and duties specifically placed within its exclusive control by statute." Majority, at 431. That is the holding of Noe v. Edmonds Sch. Dist. 15, 83 Wn.2d 97, 103, 515 P.2d 977 (1973).
The question then is not the meaning of the collective bargaining agreement, but more fundamentally, was it permissible for the district to bargain away its duty and deci-sionmaking power as to whom to employ as a full-time teacher? The collective bargaining agreement makes automatic the employment of a full-time teacher by transfer to a vacancy of a person hired as a part-time teacher.
Despite many legislative and judicial changes in the legal relationship between school districts and their certificated employees, the power and duty of the school board to make employment decisions has remained vested explicitly in the hoard since statehood. Laws of 1890, § 26, p. 364.
The Legislature reaffirmed this strong statement of the duty of the board when, in the Educational Employment Relations Act, it provided that nothing in that act shall be construed to interfere with the responsibilities and rights of the employer as specified by state law, including its responsibilities to students, the public and other constituent elements of the institution. RCW 41.59.930.
Given this clear and exclusive right and duty of the board to make employment decisions, I conclude that it is the legislative intent that a decision to hire a full-time teacher must be made by the board. Thus, the board cannot abdicate that duty by providing an automatic transfer *438right to part-time teachers.
I recognize that there may be valid educational/personnel goals to support vesting such rights in part-time teachers. However, the only factual material in this record is very explicitly to the effect that it is not a desirable policy, at least as hiring practices are in fact implemented in the very district in question.
By this record and common sense I am persuaded that the result of the majority is not the intent of the statute. If that result is a desirable one, it should be expressed by a specific legislative act.
I would affirm the trial court which more succinctly stated my position, to wit: "I find that any such transfer would require board approval since the teacher would receive increased vested rights. Therefore, such transfers are new appointments requiring the independent exercise of the Board's discretionary employment power under RCW 28A.58.099." Verbatim Report of Proceedings, at 6.
Pearson, C.J., and Utter and Callow, JJ., concur with Brachtenbach, J.
Reconsideration denied June 15, 1988.