Court Opinion

ID: 9702337
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:07:23.972722+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:36.790805
License: Public Domain

ABRAHAMSON, J.
(dissenting). Sec. 118.21(1), Stats., is designed to protect the pupils of the state from incompetent teachers. The record of this case raises, for me, the question of whether this statute has been improperly invoked by the school board to discharge this teacher without the board openly facing the issue of the reasons for the discharge and whether the discharge was lawful. The school board assigned the teacher to *582teach a subject it knew she was not certified to teach; it insisted on that assignment; it did not permit her to fill a vacancy in an assignment for which she was licensed; and it then relied on a strict application of sec. 118.21, Stats., to discharge the teacher. It seems as if this practice can be a perverted use of the law. Under the circumstances of this case I do not think sec. 118.21, Stats., is an absolute defense to the charge that the teacher was discharged without just cause. For these reasons, I think justice may not have been done and I dissent.