Court Opinion

ID: 9657750
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:36:36.293362+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:48.035965
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(dissenting).
Plainly, language within the vacancy/ transfer policy provides the Board of Education will fill vacancies from within the teaching staff “whenever possible.” This is in the first sentence of the negotiated agreement.
Obviously, the words, “whenever possible,” grant the Wessington Springs School Board some discretion. Majority strips away this language.
This agreement uses the phrase “Requests by a teacher.” And further expresses what the “request” shall state. A “request” is a “request;” it is an entreaty, a petition, an asking. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, 1976, page 1929.
Unmistakably, the last sentence of the negotiated agreement expresses: “The making of such request [‘for a voluntary transfer to a different class or building’] does not automatically imply that it will be granted.” Conclusion: The agreement begins with a “request” by a teacher and ends with the admonition to the teacher that said request will not be automatically granted. Further, said sentence forbids such an implication. Yet, we in the black robes imply it.
Therefore, I take the position that the school board had the final discretionary power to grant a request “whenever possible” and could not be mandated to grant a request because the express language of *107the negotiated agreement forbids an automatic grant.
Within the framework of this discretionary power, held firmly by the school board to maintain its obligation to run the school, this school board had the right to consider the disruption of classes and students which would be caused to these very young students in the lower grades by mid-term transfer of their teachers. They were little tykes and needed stability. It is my opinion that the ambition and personal gratification of the school teachers is elevated over the needs of the children. This is forsaking good educational goals and substituting an inferior value. Concerning disruption, Board member Dean testified:
Q. What, Tom, do you feel was the disruption that occurred to the classes, which would have, had a teacher transferred out of that class?
A. Well, you know, in all of these issues and all of these things we obviously don’t have any, we can’t say absolutely what would have happened. But our concern was we were dealing with lower elementary grades, with very young children, and that, we wanted to provide as stable and consistent an atmosphere as we could for those children, and I think it is clear particularly at that level that stability and consistency are very important. If it would have been a high school position I think it would be much less significant. But at the lower elementary level I think it is significant and we felt it would be a substantial negative impact. That doesn’t mean that the kids, you know, would have all failed. They certainly wouldn’t have. But weighing the things and trying to put together the best experience that we could for the students of the district, which is as a board member, you know, my primary concern. Then I think we put a substantial amount of weight on it.
In my opinion, the circuit judge and this Honorable Court have misinterpreted the documents in question. Under my interpretation, “there is no need to go beyond the four corners of the document.” AFSCME Local 1922 v. State, 444 N.W.2d 10, 12 (S.D.1989).
Quoting from Raben v. Schlottman, 77 S.D. 184, 88 N.W.2d 205, 208 (1958):
The rights of the parties may not be resolved by what they might have included in a contract nor by what the court may have regarded as abstract fairness; in other words, a court cannot make a contract for the parties that they did not make for themselves nor impose upon a party an obligation not assumed, (emphasis supplied mine).
Recently, this Court expressed in Strain v. Rapid City School Board, 447 N.W.2d 332 (S.D.1989), quoting with approval Moran v. Rapid City Area School Dst., 281 N.W.2d 595, 598 (S.D.1979):
School boards are creatures of the legislature and are a part of the legislative branch of government. Therefore, the judiciary may not invade the province of the school board’s decision making unless such decision making is done contrary to law.
A reasonable construction should be given to this agreement which accords with the intention of the parties. The majority opinion is imposing upon the Wessington Springs School Board an obligation which it did not assume — to the contrary — it bargained expressly against that obligation now imposed upon it.