Court Opinion

ID: 9679296
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:47:42.296226+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:12.110712
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Justice
(dissenting).
At the time material here no one could coach who did not hold a teaching certificate. All certificated employees of the school district, with exceptions not applicable here, were teachers within the meaning of Iowa "Code section 279.13. Thus we recognized in Spilman v. Board of Directors of Davis County Community School District, 253 N.W.2d 593, 596 (Iowa 1977) that librarians who were required to be certificated were teachers. No teacher could be terminated from a teaching contract unless the procedures of chapter 279 were followed. Here the teacher had two separate contracts, one, for four-fifths of her time, to teach elementary physical education, and the other for the extracurricular duties as basketball coach and assistant track coach. The recent statutory change makes mandatory what this district and teacher did voluntarily. Plaintiff was no less a teacher within the meaning of section 279.13 under one contract than under the other. It follows that the district could not terminate either contract without using chapter 279 procedures. Because those procedures were not used, I would reverse the judgment for the district.