Court Opinion

ID: 9547198
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:43:38.725387+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:17:27.176272
License: Public Domain

Hale, C.J.
(dissenting) — The notice of nonrenewal here was, I think, insufficient and, therefore, invalid. It merely said that, because of insufficient funds, the district “had to budget for a reduced educational program” for the year 1972-73, resulting in the board’s determination to reduce teacher positions. Other than to intimate that some teachers were to be laid off while a greater number was to be retained, the notice did not state in what respects- the educational program for the ensuing year was to be reduced. Where plaintiff would stand in the relative scheme of this major reduction in force was neither specified nor even *789implied except that she was among those to be discharged. In essence, the notice of nonrenewal did no more than to advise each nonrenewed teacher receiving it that the district lacked the necessary funds to continue the teacher’s position.
How the court finds this notice to be adequate is unclear. The notice of nonrenewal would supply the teacher with less information and less basis for probable cause than a general newspaper account that the school district would lay off a specific number of teachers. If this is adequate notice in law, then the customary news story or editorial of a reduction in force mailed to a teacher and accompanied by a declaration that “this means you” must in law be held to suffice. I hardly think that either meets the minimal requirement of RCW 28A.67.070.
The notice of nonrenewal does not specify that the non-renewed teacher is one of a specific number to be nonrenewed or retained; it does not in any way indicate the seniority standing of the teacher in relation to other teachers who are being renewed; nor does it specify if, how, or to what extent the role seniority will play as to all teachers to be nonrenewed; it does not state how seniority will figure specifically in a given case when applied to the particular teacher receiving the particular notice. Without these specifics, the notice, I think, says nothing. From it the teacher • learns nothing about his relative position that he would not learn from a school superintendent’s general news release that, due to lack of funds, the teaching force next year would be reduced and a stated number of teachers discharged.
I do not read the teacher’s code of this State, RCW 28A, as authorizing such a cavalier method of terminating a teacher’s right to a continuation of employment and abridging thereby her retirement entitlements. Rather, from beginning to end, in my judgment, the code establishes a protective mechanism akin to a civil service for teachers with tenure, giving protection on the job from arbitrary *790and capricious discharge, demotion, or disciplinary; action. It makes seniority one of the basic ingredients, of tenure, for upon this to a large extent depends the teacher’s vested rights to retirement compensation. The right to continued employment thus is not to be tampered with by such loose and unintelligible semantics as was employed in the board’s criteria: “That seniority be the determining factor when program ■ considerations appear equal.” Under the, fog of that terminology, a senior teacher could be dismissed by nonrenewal and a junior teacher retained for no .better reason than that a principal, director or superintendent liked one teacher better than the other — and no one would be the wiser.
Why does the teacher’s code create a form of civil service or merit system employment? First, a teacher has achieved the legal equivalent of appointment by examination, for he or she cannot even be appointed to a teaching position without possessing the professional qualifications prescribed by law, and evidenced by “an effective teacher’s certificate or other certificate required by law or the state board of education.” RCW 28A.67.070. Rightful possession or entitlement to such a certificate makes one a . “certificated employee.” These provisions alone should constitute at least the legal equivalent of a civil or merit system certificate of standing in the examinations. Secondly, the school board, in employing teachers, must take only those who possess the requisite professional qualifications evidenced by a state certificate. RCW 28A.67.070. The board is not a freely negotiating employer; its contract with the teachers must conform to the laws of the State. Although limited to a term of I year, renewal is automatic, for nonrenewal can be lawfully effected only by delivery of written notice prior to April 15. The notice must specify the cause or causes for nonrenewal of the contract, and the teacher has a right, by calling for a hearing, to challenge both the facts asserted in the notice and the legal sufficiency claimed as grounds for nonrenewal. At the hearing, the burden falls necessarily *791upon the board to' show valid, subsisting and lawful reason for nonrenewal, i.e., termination of the contract of employment., The board, too, is obliged by law to negotiate in good faith with elected representatives of teachers (RCW 28A.72.030), a statutory duty upheld as constitutional and affirmed by this court. American Fed’n of Teachers v. Yakima School Dist. 7, 74 Wn.2d 865, 447 P.2d 593 (1968); Bocek v. Bayley, 81 Wn.2d 831, 505 P.2d 814 (1973).
That the board, in order to effectively terminate, i.e., nonrenew, a teacher’s contract carries the burden of proof with respect to the individually notified teacher is, I think, categorically shown in this language of RCW 28A. 67.070:

Any decision not to renew such employment contract shall be based solely upon the cause or causes for nonrenewal specified in the notice. . .

(Italics mine.) And,
If any such notification or opportunity for hearing is not timely given by the district, the employee entitled thereto shall be conclusively presumed to have been reemployed by the district for the next ensuing term upon contractual terms identical with those which would have prevailed if his employment had actually been renewed by the board of directors for such ensuing term.
(Italics mine.)
That the legislature intended renewal to be automatic is clearly seen in the above statute and in the provision of RCW 28A.72.030 not only giving teachers certain collective bargaining rights but requiring the school board to “meet, confer and negotiate” with them at least concerning “curriculum, textbook selection, in-service training, student teaching programs, personnel, hiring and assignment practices, leaves of absence, salaries and salary schedules and noninstruetional duties.” (Italics mine.)
As is the case with nearly all tenured employment, employment rights may, upon proper complaint, be cancelled, that is, the teaching certificate revoked after hearing “for immorality, violation of written contract, intemperance, *792crime against the law of the state, or any unprofessional conduct.” RCW 28A.70.160.
Contrary to the views expressed by the majority, I find that Thayer v. Anacortes School Dist., 81 Wn.2d 709, 504 P.2d 1130 (1972), a unanimous decision of this court, is controlling here. It recognizes on sound grounds, I think, the principle that all teacher tenure statutes, when read in pari materia, are designed to and do establish a system of teacher tenure based in part on seniority and in part on a design to protect the teacher’s pension and retirement rights.
Thayer seems to me to be on all fours with this case. There, as here, the notice of nonrenewal expressed appreciation to the teacher for her devoted service and alluded to lack of funds as the reason for nonrenewal. There, as here, the notice made no mention of the teacher’s seniority nor her relative seniority status as to the other teachers renewed or not renewed. There, as here, the nonrenewed teacher had no way of ascertaining why she was being nonrenewed other than an assertion of lack of funds and whether and to what extent other teachers of the same or similar category junior to her were being retained. Had the teacher in Thayer elected to challenge the notice on its content and meet the grounds set forth, she would be limited to contesting the sole issue of whether there were in fact adequate funds to pay her salary and be deprived thereby of a challenge to the vital question of why she, and not some one junior to her, was to be discharged by nonrenewal.
That is precisely the situation again before us. The notice gives no reason whatever why plaintiff is being laid off and others retained. Its only specified ground for nonrenewal is the general assertion that lack of funds made it impossible to continue her teaching position. In Thayer, we pointed out that RCW 28.67.076 preserved to a teacher her seniority standing when transferring from one school district to another and that this provision had been reenacted several *793times, now being codified as RCW 28A.58.100(2) (h). We felt it quite unlikely that the legislature intended to preserve seniority status on transfer from one district to another while making no provision whatever for it at the outset. It is equally unlikely that the legislature would establish a comprehensive retirement system for teachers, accept their monetary contributions to it and do nothing to insure a measure of continuity of employment or ignore seniority as a major factor. One cannot attribute a vain or idle purpose to the legislature or that it intended to preserve by statute what the teacher never acquired by statute in the first place.
Accordingly, as in Thayer, it was held in Peters v. South Kitsap School Dist. 402, 8 Wn. App. 809, 509 P.2d 67 (1973), that, when economic conditions require a reduction in personnel, a school district must consider a teacher’s seniority in relation to that of other teachers who have the same or a similar teaching assignment. In holding the notice inadequate and legally insufficient to sustain the nonrenewal, the court said that seniority would be the determinant in determining general reduction in teacher staff and that the notice of nonrenewal, inter alia, had to include an operative reference to seniority so that the nonrenewed teacher could ascertain her relative standing on the seniority lists or roster. We said, in Thayer v. Anacortes School Dist., 81 Wn.2d 709, 712-18, 504 P.2d 1130 (1972):
Our examination of the record leads us to the conclusion that the matter of plaintiff’s seniority was an integral part of the circumstances upon which the sufficiency of the notice should have been tested. The court, therefore, in failing to take into consideration what effect plaintiff’s seniority would have in deciding the sufficiency of the notice of nonrenewal, omitted a vital element upon which her duty to protest the notice depended.
and
Thus, although the record does not show actual evidence of the plaintiff’s seniority as a teacher and librarian in the Anacortes district, the case, as presented to the *794trial court, made it a vital factor before the court and one to be considered in determining whether the notice, of nonrenewal was legally sufficient to set the 10-day appeal term in motion. Her allegation of senior status and the supporting statement of policy governing reduction in the certificated staff and defendant’s failure to controvert counsel's statements at trial gave plaintiff a right to assume that the school district was either waiving seniority as an issue, or conceding that she was senior in tenure to other librarians whose contracts had been renewed.
and
With seniority as a factor to be considered in the non-renewal of her teaching contract, plaintiff could rightly assume, therefore, from the notice of nonrenewal, that teachers and librarians junior in tenure to her would be laid off first; she had a correlative right to assume further from the notice of nonrenewal that no librarian junior in tenure to her. would be retained. Since the notice did not inform her that she was being dropped while junior librarians were being retained, she was not, under RCW 28.67.070, given reasonably adequate notice of the reasons for her nonrenewal and, therefore, was under no duty to appeal under pain of waiver of protest.
and
There was thus at the time plaintiff received the notice of nonrenewal a statute in effect affording her preferential rights to renewal of her contract as a school librarian, based on her years of continuous service as a certificated teacher and librarian within the Anacortes school system. To alert her to the necessity of protesting or requesting a hearing under these statutes, the notice of nonrenewal should have stated one way or the other that seniority would be ignored in reducing the teaching staff or library staff because of inadequate funds.
and, finally, declaring seniority to be the sine qua non of teacher tenure, we said:
In Erma Thayer’s case, there is no hint whatever as to any complaints that she performed her services incompetently or even unsatisfactorily, nor any suggestion that the nonrenewal was based on anything othér than lack of funds necessitating a reduction in the certificated téaching force. She had a right to assume from the notice that *795all librarians junior to her in tenure had been included in . the reduction.
. Accordingly, the decree of the court is reversed and the cause remanded for a determination of seniority. If plaintiff is senior to librarians retained or renewed, her contract will be reinstated and a judgment entered for the amount in which she was damaged.
Our opinion in Thayer has been cited with approval' in the short time since it was delivered on several occasions. Peters v. South Kitsap School Dist. 402, 8 Wn. App. 809, 509 P.2d 67 (1973); Boyle v. Renton School Dist. 403, 10 Wn. App. 523, 518 P.2d 221 (1974); and Williams v. Board of Directors of Endicott School Dist. 308, 10 Wn. App. 579, 519 P.2d 15 (1974).
All of these cases, I think, recognize that the legislature, in creating a code for the employment and continued services of teachers in the public schools, intended to and did actually design a system giving teachers protection against arbitrary and capricious discharge, and provided for their continued services by automatic renewal of contract unless good cause could be shown. If seniority be not the major factor upon which the right to renewal of contract depends, then the teachers of this state have no tenure at all in times of reduced enrollment or curtailed funding.
Either the legislature intended to make seniority the major basis for determining who would be retained and who would be laid off where major reductions in the teaching force are made necessary by lack of funds or reductions in enrollment, or they intended nothing more than a trifle. Unless seniority be the major basis for retaining teachers having similar qualifications and teaching assignments, a teacher is without any tenure at all. He or she may be discharged, i.e., nonrenewed, without any cause whatever, upon whim or caprice, or even out of ill will under the blanket claim of economic necessity. Without seniority, the; teachers have nothing in cases of major personnel reductions and all of the assertions of tenure amount to form without substance, rhetoric without principle, and their *796rights to retirement whether vested or otherwise subject to forfeiture or abridgment. RCW 41.32.
In dealing with presumably qualified, competent and well-trained teaching personnel if the district is not held to the policy of first hired, last fired, it can, in cases of reducing the staff by several teachers, discharge or nonrenew any teacher without any cause whatever. This, I think, the legislature did not intend in enacting a comprehensive teacher and education code, Title 28A.
Petition for rehearing denied January 29, 1975.