Court Opinion

ID: 9520591
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:44:39.679889+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:46:29.742244
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE STOUDER, specially concurring: I concur in the opinion of my colleagues although I feel constrained to note that the interpretation and application of the statutory scheme of termination of nontenured teachers may not have been that intended by the legislature. The statute which is applied in this case interjects a new concept which may or may not have been intended by the legislature. Formerly periods of employment were usually delineated to end with the school year, and notices or acts required to be done at special times were so described in terms of the end of the school year or at particular calendar dates during the year. The present statute describes the periods with reference to the school year or the end of the term both as applied to termination and tenure. We have here applied the rule regarding termination to apply at the end of a term in the middle of the school year even though all of the facts which would have apparently been necessary to determine whether the teacher should be retained were known or should have been known prior to the end of the previous school year. By this application the teacher is notified of her termination even before the term commences, a consequence which I am not sure was. intended by the legislature. Consistent with this interpretation it also now appears that a teacher employed in the middle of a school year may obtain tenure in the middle of the school year since the necessary 3- or 4-year period of time need not expire at the end of a school year but may expire at the end of a term. However, I do agree with the majority’s application of the statute and assume it was what the legislature intended from the language employed.