Court Opinion

ID: 9517494
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:18:57.633792+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:54:56.067696
License: Public Domain

OXBERGER, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
Because I disagree with the majority’s analysis in three crucial areas, I respectfully dissent from its conclusions in this case.
I. Due Process
The majority agrees that Olds was entitled, on due process grounds, to a hearing before an impartial panel. It properly cites Bishop v. Keystone Area Education Agency No. 1, 275 N.W.2d 744, 752 (Iowa 1979), in support of the proposition that in deciding anew whether to terminate a teacher’s contract, the board must lay its earlier finding aside, any member harboring prejudice of predilection being required to recuse himself or herself. And then, in the face of clear evidence that three of the five board members did harbor such prejudices and predilections, the majority concludes that the board was impartial.
The record demonstrates that board members Ross, Zwanziger, and Etter all testified, on voir dire, that the decision they had made a year earlier was correct, and indicated that they believed that the burden was upon Olds to demonstrate that his employment should not be terminated. The burden of proof was not upon the teacher, but upon the administration; and the clear admission of the three board members of their belief to the contrary denied Olds due process.
II. The Contract
The majority’s construction of Article XI of the contract is inconsistent with the plain meaning of the words in that article. It is forced and unconvincing.
Step 4 of the reduction procedures provides:
Fully certified employees endorsed by the State of Iowa in the curricular or subject *773area affected and least seniority in the school district shall be laid off next.. ..
(emphasis added).
“Curricular or subject area” is then divided into two general categories, one applying to grades K through 6, and other to grades 7 through 12, with specific subject areas, such as science falling under each of them.
The plain meaning of the contract would thus lead to the following conclusions:
The credentials and seniority of all of the science teachers — i.e., those who teach science, which is the “subject area affected”— between the grades of 7 and 12 anywhere in the school district must be examined. That teacher who has the least seniority would be the first to be terminated. Only those teachers who are fully certified and endorsed in that particular subject area could have seniority in that area.
At the time this matter arose, there were three teachers in the science area in grades 7 through 12: Olds, Kunzman, and Lauger. Olds and Kunzman were both certified teachers who were endorsed to teach science on the high school level. Laufer was not. Laufer merely had a general certificate for teaching in grades K through 9, and was endorsed to teach physical education, driver’s education, and industrial arts. Since Laufer was teaching science, but was not endorsed in that area, it follows that under the provisions of the contract, he had no seniority in the “subject area affected,” and should have been first in line for termination, as the district court concluded.
The majority, calling this interpretation strained and alleging that it would lead to anomalies, overlooks the consequences of its own interpretation: A person who is not endorsed to teach a particular subject area automatically becomes immune to termination when he teaches classes in that area, while those who are so endorsed are laid off first. The good fortune of such unendorsed teachers would surely be translated into the misfortune of their students, who would be deprived of the professional services of teachers who had spent the money, time, and effort to become specialists in their teaching fields.
Moreover, a teacher who had been endorsed to teach, say, science, and was teaching computer science in the math department might find that he was terminated because he had the least seniority among those who were endorsed to teach science, an area of declining enrollment, despite the fact that he was in fact teaching computer science, an area of rising enrollments.
I cannot believe that such anomalous conclusions were intended by the authors of the contract. On the contrary, if we stick to the plain meaning of the document, we reach the same conclusion as that reached by the district court: that under the contract, if anyone was to be terminated, it would have had to be Laufer rather than Olds, since Laufer had no seniority in the subject matter affected, as opposed to Olds, who had some seniority.
III. Just Cause
In Briggs v. Board of Directors, 282 N.W.2d 740, 753 (Iowa 1979), the supreme court defined “just cause” as “one which directly or indirectly significantly and adversely affects what must be the ultimate goal of every school system: high quality education for the district’s students.... It must include the concept that a school district is not married to mediocrity.”
The majority’s construction of this contract would stand this definition on its head, and confer special benefits upon teachers who are not endorsed in their subject areas, lead to the early termination of teachers who are so endorsed, and subject students who are interested in learning about physics, chemistry, or biology to teachers who are skilled wrestling coaches and driving instructors. I cannot conceive of a surer path to mediocrity, both in our schools and in society at large.
The record simply does not support the majority’s conclusion that there was just cause for the board’s finding. No enrollment data were furnished to bolster the administration’s contention that enrollment declines required a reduction of science teaching staff. There is no evidence that *774the school district was suffering financial exigency. On the contrary, the Department of Public Instruction and the North Central Association had recommended enlargement of the district’s high school science curriculum. The board’s response was to cut it.
Olds’s constitutional, statutory, and contractual rights were trampled upon by the board. The district court has properly attempted, on two separate occasions, to vindicate this teacher’s rights. The majority’s arguments for reversing are unpersuasive. I would affirm.
JOHNSON, J., joins this dissent.