Teacher Terminations - Connecticut General Assembly

Topic:TEACHERS; TEACHER TENURE; Location:TEACHERS; Scope:Connecticut laws/regulations;

The Connecticut General Assembly

OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE RESEARCH

August 10, 1994 94-R-0722

TO:

FROM: Judith S. Lohman, Principal Analyst

RE: Teacher Terminations

You asked for a summary of the teacher termination process. You also asked how the process could be expedited and made less costly for school boards.

SUMMARY

The teacher termination process is established by state law (CGS § 10-151). Under the law, teachers who have taught continuously and full-time in the same school system for at least 30 months (three school years) must have their contracts automatically renewed every year thereafter unless the board of education eliminates their position or gives a specific cause for terminating them. Such teachers have tenure. Teachers with less than 30 months' experience are not tenured. Their contracts are subject to nonrenewal without prior explanation as long they are notified before April 1. If a school board wishes to dismiss a tenured or nontenured teacher it must grant explicit due process rights and follow the termination procedures and timetables specified in state law. Under the law, boards must state their reasons for dismissing a teacher and they may do so only for specifically enumerated reasons. Teachers have a right to a hearing before the board or an impartial panel at which they may be present and represented by counsel. Tenured teachers terminated for any reason and nontenured teachers terminated for specified reasons may appeal their dismissals to court.

In addition to the rights and protections granted under the state law, teachers, like other public employees, also have constitutional protections against dismissal without due process. The process that must be afforded to teachers before termination has been the subject of much litigation as described in more detail in OLR report 93-R-1021 (copy enclosed).

Although the Constitution limits the power of school boards to dismiss teachers, it does not specify any particular timetable or process. Thus, the state has considerable constitutional leeway to revise the state teacher termination law. Among the possible ways to make the teacher dismissal process cheaper and quicker are to shorten the statutory timetables for notice and hearings, limit the grounds for court appeals, limit the scope of court review, and allow boards to delegate procedural matters to superintendents. The General Assembly considered many proposals along these lines in the 1994 session but failed to pass any.

TEACHER FAIR DISMISSAL LAW

Connecticut law gives all teachers below the rank of superintendent certain protections related to termination but it makes a distinction between tenured and nontenured teachers. Teachers receive tenure once they have taught full-time for the same school system for 30 continuous school months.

Reasons for Dismissal

Under the law, a tenured teacher may be dismissed only for the following reasons:

1. inefficiency or incompetence;

2. insubordination against reasonable board of education rules;

3. moral misconduct;

4. disability proven by medical evidence;

5. elimination of the position to which the teacher was appointed or loss of a position another teacher, as long as there is no other position for which the teacher is qualified and subject to the applicable provisions of a collective bargaining agreement or school board policy; or

6. other due and sufficient cause.

During their first three years of teaching, before they become tenured, teachers can also be notified in writing by April 1 of each school year that their contracts will not be renewed for the coming year. The board does not have to specify any reason for nonrenewal unless the teacher files a written request for the reason. If the teacher makes such a request, the board must supply a reason within seven days.

Dismissal Process and Timetable - Tenured Teachers

School boards must follow a specific statutory process when dismissing both tenured and nontenured teachers. The statutory dismissal process and timetable for tenured teachers is as follows:

TEACHER TERMINATION TIMETABLE

Action Deadline

School board notifies teacher

in writing that it is consider-

ing termination.

Teacher files written request Seven days after teacher receives

asking the board to state its notice of potential termination.

Board notifies teacher in writing Seven days after board receives request.

of reasons.

Teacher files written request Within 20 days after teacher receives

for a hearing. termination notice.

The board may hear the case itself or may designate a subcommittee of three or more board members to hear the case. The board may convene an impartial hearing panel, if the teacher requests it or the board designates one. The parties may also agree to a hearing before an impartial hearing officer chosen by both parties. If the parties cannot agree on a hearing officer within five days after they decide to use one, the hearing must be held before either the board or a hearing panel. The hearing panel consists of three members, one chosen by the teacher, one by the board, and a chairman chosen by these two members.

TIMETABLE (cont.)

Action Deadline

Hearings begin. Hearings may be Within 15 days after the board

public at the teacher's request receives the hearing request. The

or if designated by the board. parties may mutually agree to ex-

The teacher may appear and be tend this deadline.

represented by counsel.

Board subcommittee, panel, or Within 90 days after the hearing

hearing officer submits written request unless the parties agree

findings and recommendations to to extend.

the full board concerning the case and

sends a copy to the teacher.

Board gives teacher its written Within 15 days of receiving the

decision. recommendations. If the hearing

takes place before the full board,

within 15 days after the close of

the hearings.

Board furnishes a copy of the Within 15 days of the decision.

hearing transcript if the teacher

requests one in writing and pays the

cost.

Teacher may appeal board's decision to Within 30 days after the decision.

Superior Court.

Despite the foregoing requirements, the law gives a school board the right to suspend a teacher from duty immediately and without prejudice when serious misconduct is charged.

Dismissal Process for Nontenured Teachers

Nontenured teachers have many of the same termination rights under the law as tenured teachers. But they can also be dismissed by nonrenewal of their contracts if they are notified by April 1. If a teacher files a written request, the board must supplement the nonrenewal notice with a written statement of its reasons for nonrenewal within seven days of receiving the request.

Nontenured teachers may also be “bumped” by tenured teachers whose positions are eliminated. Bumping must occur in accordance with a collective bargaining agreement or, if there is none, with a written policy of the board.

Like a tenured teacher, a nontenured teacher has 20 days after receiving notice of nonrenewal or termination to file a written request for a hearing either before the board or, if the hearing request specifies it and the board designates, an impartial hearing panel appointed as described above. In cases of nontenured teachers dismissed because their positions were eliminated or they were bumped, the board may appoint a subcommittee to hear the case and submit findings and recommendations to the full board.

As with tenured teachers, the hearing must begin within 15 days of the request unless the parties agree to an extension and must be conducted in the same way. Nontenured teachers are not allowed to appeal board decisions on nonrenewal, elimination of position, loss of position to another teacher, or termination for other due and sufficient cause to Superior Court. They may appeal board dismissals for inefficiency or incompetence, insubordination, moral misconduct, or disability.

Court Appeals

If a teacher appeals a dismissal to Superior Court, the court must treat it as a privileged case and hear it as soon as practicable. The board must file the hearing transcript and other relevant documents with the court. The court must review the record and allow the parties to introduce new evidence if equitable disposition of the case requires it. The court may affirm or reverse the board's decision but is not allowed to assess costs against the board unless it finds the board acted with gross negligence, malice, or bad faith.

PROPOSALS FOR EXPEDITING THE TERMINATION PROCESS

A major criticism of the teacher termination process is that it is too long and too costly. The cost is partly a function of the length of the process and partly of the practice of paying teachers their regular salary during termination proceedings and appeals. The best way to reduce the cost is to make the process shorter and easier to implement by revising statutory deadlines, allowing superintendents to carry out some functions currently assigned to boards, allowing boards to delegate hearing responsibilities, limiting the grounds for court appeals, and limiting the scope of court review. Costs could also be reduced by limiting a board's obligation to pay teacher's during all or part of the termination proceedings and requiring only that teachers receive back pay if they prevail. Such pay procedures are typically followed in discrimination and wrongful dismissal cases. It could be argued that the practice of paying full salary to teachers throughout the proceedings provides an incentive for them to drag out the process and file appeals even in cases where they are not likely to prevail.

In 1994, the Commission on Educational Excellence proposed that teachers be given tenure after four instead of three years of full-time continuous employment, that the termination process be expedited, and that there be two additional reasons for terminating a teacher: “failure to demonstrate effective performance that promotes student achievement” and “failure to engage in activities to enhance professional growth and development.” In an initial draft of legislation to implement the commission's recommendations (SB 321), the Education Committee incorporated the commission's longer service requirement for tenure and made several changes in the termination process. For both tenured and nontenured teachers, SB 321 sought to add the two termination criteria specified by the commission and delegated responsibility for giving termination notices and responding to hearing requests to the superintendent instead of the board of education.

For tenured teachers, SB 321 would have encouraged the use of impartial hearing panels and would have required their members to be chosen by the teacher and the superintendent instead of the teacher and the board. It would have shortened the termination process by eliminating provisions allowing parties to agree to deadline extensions for beginning and ending the hearings and would have limited the hearings to 60 instead of 90 days.

For nontenured teachers, SB 321 proposed to eliminate the April 1 deadline for contract nonrenewals and to presume that contracts were not renewed unless the board notified the teacher at any time that they were. It would have reduced the teacher's time for requesting a termination hearing from 20 to 15 days after receiving the notice, repealed the parties' option to extend that deadline, and allowed a subcommittee of the board or an impartial hearing panel to hear cases contesting termination for any reason, not just elimination of position or bumping. It would also have removed court appeal rights in cases where nontenured teachers were terminated for inefficiency, incompetence, or insubordination, thus limiting their court appeal rights to cases where they were terminated for moral misconduct or disability.

SB 321 would have limited the scope of court review of teacher terminations to the hearing record and other relevant documents and eliminated its authority to allow introduction of new evidence by either party. It would have limited the court's grounds for overturning the board's dismissal of a teacher to situations where one party's substantial rights were prejudiced because the decision was based on a legal error or was arbitrary, capricious, or characterized by abuse of, or clearly unwarranted exercise of, discretion.

Most of these proposed changes were eliminated from the bill that the Education Committee reported to the House floor (sHB 5669). But sHB 5669 still contained the proposals to lengthen the pre-tenure service requirement, increase the superintendent's role in terminations, use impartial hearing panels, and impose a 60-day deadline for completing termination hearings. It also retained the two additional termination criteria in a slightly modified form, the limitations on nontenured teachers' court appeal rights, and the authority for board subcommittees to hold nontenured teacher termination hearings. It would have reduced the time that parties who agreed to use a single impartial hearing officer had to name a particular person from five to three days. None of these proposals were enacted as sHB 5669 failed to pass the General Assembly.

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Enclosure