Court Opinion

ID: 9722445
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:32:17.779647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:35.420463
License: Public Domain

SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION ON DENIAL OF REHEARING Mr. JUSTICE BARRY delivered the opinion of the court: The appellant, Board of Education of Annawan Community Unit School District No. 226 of Henry County, Illinois, has filed a petition for rehearing in this case which we deny, believing that our original disposition of this case is correct. The appellant has, however, raised several questions in its petition for rehearing which demand some additional comment. The appellant contends that the recently decided case of Lester Englebrecht et al. v. Don Hurson et al. (No. 77 — C—429, N.D. Ill. March 17,1979), supports its argument that a temporary suspension of a tenured teacher does not require a hearing under section 24 — 12 of the School Code (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 122, par. 24 — 12). We have carefully examined both the result and the rationale of the Englebrecht case. Contrary to the determination we have made, the Federal District Court in Englebrecht failed to find any statutory basis for the power of the school board to suspend a teacher. Its conclusion, then, that a hearing before an independent hearing officer was not required, was undoubtedly based on its finding that there is no power to suspend, and thus is not supportive of appellant’s position. We adhere to the reasons we recited earlier in deciding that the statutory authority for a temporary suspension was derived from section 24 — 12 of the School Code. The appellant’s petition for rehearing also presented to us transcripts of the debates on section 24 — 12 of the School Code in the Illinois House of Representatives and Senate. These debates did not mention whether suspension is included within the concept of dismissal or termination as the law was drafted. Moreover statements of a few legislators in a floor debate would not in itself affirmatively establish the intent of the legislature. (See Client Follow-Up Co. v. Hynes (1979), 75 Ill. 2d 208, 390 N.E.2d 847.) We find the appellant’s reliance on the debates to support its position to be unpersuasive. The appellant Board of Education also urges us to reconsider our holding in light of the recent Illinois Supreme Court decision of Grissom v. Board of Education (1979), 75 Ill. 2d 314. Appellant argues that Grissom, insofar as it holds that the dismissal of a teacher by a school board acting in both an investigatory and adjudicatory capacity does not deprive the dismissed teacher of due process, is applicable to this case. Appellant further argues that Grissom’s reliance upon Gilliland and Hortonville constitutes a rejection by the supreme court of our interpretation of those cases. We disagree. Like Hortonville and Gilliland, Grissom is factually distinguishable from the situation involving Craddock. Grissom involves a teacher dismissed pursuant to a procedure then in effect which did not require the appointment of an independent hearing officer (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 122, par. 24 — 12). In addition, the dismissal procedure in Grissom was attacked on constitutional grounds, whereas in Craddock’s case we are dealing with the issue of statutory compliance. Our finding that Hortonville and Gilliland are inapplicable to the instant case is unaffected by the Grissom decision. The appellant makes the assumption in his petition that we rejected its argument that the Board of Education was impartial. On the contrary, we did not reject the appellant’s allegation of impartiality in the majority opinion. However, neither did we accept it. The Board may very well have acted without “bias, prejudice, or hostility” toward Craddock, but his argument only emphasizes the correctness of our analysis and the need for section 24 — 12 safeguards in the case of suspensions. It is true, as the supreme court pointed out in Grissom, that “ ‘state administrators “are assumed to be men of conscience and intellectual discipline, capable of judging a particular controversy fairly on the basis of its own circumstances” ’ ” (75 Ill. 2d 314, 320, 388 N.E.2d 398, 400, quoting Withrow v. Larkin (1975), 421 U.S. 35, 55, 43 L. Ed. 2d 712, 728, 95 S. Ct. 1456, 1468), but we are not so naive as to expect that such conscience and impartiality will be exercised in every single situation where a school board sits in judgment of an employee. We can easily envision situations where the school board is not impartial, and exhibits the kind of hostility, prejudice and bias the appellant contends was nonexistent in its suspension of Craddock. The possibility of such an occurrence demands that section 24 — 12 safeguards apply to suspensions as well as to permanent dismissals. In support of the position of our majority opinion is the recent case of Taylor v. State Board of Education (1978), 56 Ill. App. 3d 387, 372 N.E.2d 129. There the appellate court held that when the dean of students was reassigned to the position of a teacher with an accompanying reduction in salary, sections 24 — 11 and 24 — 12 of the School Code, which required a hearing by an independent hearing officer and other procedural safeguards afforded to tenured teachers, were necessarily applicable. The reasoning set forth in the Taylor opinion buttresses our view of the applicability of sections 24 — 11 and 24 — 12 of the School Code to this case. In Taylor the court concluded that it was the transfer of the former tenured teacher, then administrator, back to a teaching job with the resulting salary reduction that triggered the application of the procedural safeguards of sections 24 — 11 and 24 — 12 of the School Code. The loss of pay in the present case only strengthens our resolve in the applicability of section 24 — 12 to the “temporary discharge” of Craddock.  Our view of the teacher tenure provisions of the School Code coincides with the court in Taylor. We reiterate that the purpose of the procedural safeguards granted to tenured teachers by the School Code is to insulate them from arbitrary and capricious actions of their employer when their livelihood or tenured status is threatened. The legislature in its wisdom has struck this compromise between the conflicting interests of labor and management in the public school system for the obvious policy reasons of maintaining quality education in our Illinois schools. We will not alter the sensitive balance of interests legislatively created. Petition for rehearing denied. STOUDER, J., concurs.