Court Opinion

ID: 9883821
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:21:03.220764+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:31.768572
License: Public Domain

FOLEY, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The majority takes the position that the provisions of Minn.Stat. § 122.541 create an exception to the provisions of Minn.Stat. § 125.12, and that Sherek’s right to be reinstated is controlled by section 122.541. The result of that interpretation is that less senior teachers working for the Eveleth school district have rights to positions in the Gilbert schools which supersede the reinstatement rights of a senior teacher employed by the Gilbert school district. The Interdistrict Cooperation Act creates no such exception to the Teacher Tenure Act.
Under the Interdistrict Cooperation Act, teachers employed by the Eveleth school district do have rights to positions in the Gilbert schools. However, an Eveleth teacher’s right to a teaching position in Gilbert supersedes Sherek’s right to be reinstated to that position only if the Evel-eth teacher is more senior than Sherek. That is not the case here. Sherek is a continuing contract teacher placed on unrequested leave of absence by the Gilbert school district and is more senior that Eleven, Beste, and Eriska and the court so found. To assign less senior Eveleth teachers to positions within Sherek’s licen-sure in the Gilbert school district violates Sherek’s rights as a continuing contract teacher.
*848Based on the decision by this court in Renstrom v. Independent School District No. 261, 390 N.W.2d 25 (Minn.Ct.App.1986), I conclude that Sherek, a Gilbert teacher, should be entitled to reinstatement to a position in the Gilbert schools. In Ren-strom, a full-time teacher in the Ashby school district was placed on unrequested leave of absence when the Ashby district discontinued its business education program. The Ashby school board had signed a Joint Powers Agreement under which students from Ashby were sent to the Evansville school district for two business courses. Those courses were taught by an Evansville teacher less senior to Renstrom, who argued that she should have been reinstated to teach those classes. This court held that she was not entitled to reinstatement under Minn.Stat. § 125.12, subd. 6b(e), because no position became available within the Ashby school district. Judge Huspeni, writing the opinion and joined by Judges Lansing and Nierengarten, held:
If the Ashby school board had decided to once again offer the accounting class in the Ashby school district, Renstrom would have been eligible for reinstatement and the Ashby school board could not have hired a less senior teacher to teach those courses.
Id. at 29. Here, Sherek is a Gilbert teacher with seniority, and the position for which he is licensed, secondary industrial arts, is being taught in his own district. No language in section 122.541 gives less senior teachers from another cooperating school district the right to occupy a teaching position in Gilbert in preference to a more senior Gilbert teacher on unrequested leave.
It may be that these statutes should be reviewed by the Minnesota Legislature to resolve any conflicts that arise in these situations, but to hold as the majority does here, is to totally ignore Renstrom, a well-reasoned decision of this court.