Teachers Have Rights, Too. What Educators Should Know ERIC
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 199 144 SO 013 200 AUTHOR Stelzer, Leigh: Banthin, Joanna TITLE Teachers Have Rights, Too. What Educators ShouldKnow About School Law. INSTITUTICN ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies/SocialScience Education, Boulder, Colo.: ERIC Clearinghouseon Educational Management, Eugene, Oreg.: SocialScience Education Consortium, Inc., Boulder, Colo- SPCNS AGENCY Department of Education, Washington, D.C.: National Inst. of Education (DHEW), Washington, D.C. DEPORT NO ISBN-0-86552-075-5: ISBN-0-89994-24:.-0 FOB CATE BO CONTRACT 400-78 -0006: 400-78-0007 NOTE 176p. AVAILABLE FPOM Social Science Education Consortium,855 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80802 (S7.95). EDFS PRICE ME01/PCOB Plus Postage. CESCRIPTCPS Academic Freedom: Discipline: *Educational Legislation: Elementary Secondary Education:Ereedom of Speech: Life Style: Malpractice;Reduction in Force: *School Law: Teacher Dismissal:Tenure IDENTIFIERS *Teacher Fights ABSTRACT This book addresses the law-relatedconcerns of school teachers. Much of the datacn which the book is based was collected during a four year stlzdy, conducted bythe American Bar Association with the support of the Ford Foundation.Court cases are cited. Chapter one examines "Tenure." Sincetenure gives teachers the right to their jobs, tenured teachers cannotbe dismissed without due process cf law or without cause. They are entitled to noticeof charges and a fair hearing, with the opportunityto present a defense. The burden is on school authoritiesto show that there are good and lawful reasons for dismissal. "ReductionIn Force (RIF)" is the topic cf chapter two. Many school districtsare facing declining enrollments and rising costs for diminishedservices. EIF begins with a decision that a school district has too many teachers.Laws vary from state to state. Discussed are: What requirementsmust be met for RIF to be declared? Whc can be RI-Fed?: What proceduresmust be followed? Do PIFed personnel have reinstatementrights? Chapter three deals with "Negligence." Negligence is the failureto anticipate unreasonable risk and guard against theconsequences. In general, teachers are unlikely to be held responsible forstudents' injuries. Normal considerations of negligence and liabilityprotect the responsible teacher. Chapters four through eighttreat the topics of "Malpractice and Defamation," "Discipline,""Academic Freedom," "Freedom cf Speech and Association," and "Life-StyleChoices." Two areas not examined are rnionization and some of the emergingissues in the legislative arena suchas teacher accountability and teacher competency. The book concludes witha list of related resources in the ERIC system. (Authcr/RM) -4117"-- -..11 LEAC7ERS TOO What EducatorsShould Know About School Law S DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. EDUCATION t. WELFARE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION tRT NT SIAS BEEN REPRO- -.0 1" xA C .4. Y AS PE CEIVEL:FROM 14,,oN CR ORGANIZATIONORIGIN- z. ti,. ro..,,cry, Oc VIEW OR OPINIONS r nn %toT NECESSAP,Lv REPRE- ,,E N NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF :T c POS+ rION OR POLICY 'PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." Leigh Stelzerand Joanna Banthin 0 Social Science EducationConsortium ERIC Clearinghouseon Educational Management ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies.' Social Science Education Boulder, Colorado 1980 iv ii....,mr Library of Congress Card No.: 80-70053 Ordering Information This publication is available from: Social Science Education Consortium 855 Broadway Boulder, Colorado 80302 (ISBN 0-89994-249-0) ERIC Clearinghouseon Educational Management University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon 97403 (ISBN 0-86552-075-5) Price: $7.95 This publication was prepared with fundingfrom the National Institute of Education. U.S Departmentof Education under contract nos. 400-78-0006and 400-7134:101:17. The opinions expressed inthis report do not necessarily reflect the positions or policiesof NIE or the Department of Education. To all of Kenneth's grandparentsthe people who make it possible to get some work done. ABOUT THEAUTHORS Leigh Stelzer ismanaging director of ates, Inc. Joanna Banthin Capitol ResearchAssoci- is assistant professorof managementat the Stillman Schoolof Business, Seton Stelzer and Dr. Hall University.Both Dr. Banthin were awardedPh.D. degrees inpolitical science by the Universityof Michigan. Contents ... CONTENTS Foreword ix Preface xi Introduction xv 1. Tenure 1 2. Reduction in Force (RIF) 22 3. Negligence . 41 4. Malpractice and Defamation 60 5. Discipline 75 6. Academic Freedom 99 7. Freedom of Speech and Association 119 8. Life-Style Choices 137 Related Resources in the ERIC System 161 Foreword ix FOREWORD In the course of our continuing work with teachers,we have become aware of their growingconcern about how the law affects their professional and personal lives. Given theproliferation of governmental mandates about what, to whom, andhow public education must be delivered and the increasinglyactive efforts of students and parents to define and claim their legalprerogatives, many teachers feel caught in the middle: while their responsibilities under the law are growing, their rightsseem to be steadily eroding. Much of these teachers' anxiety,we suspect, is due to lack of information about the extent and limits of their rights,as established by state laws and court decisions. In fact,even a hasty survey of judicial pronouncements and community attitudesover the years clearly reveals that teachers in the United Stateshave more freedom today than ever beforecertainly intheir personal lives and probably in the classrocifi. Occasionallya teacher has abused this freedom; however, for every such teacher thew probablyare a hundred who have failed to exercise legitimate rightsthat they didn't know they had. To know and responsibly exercisetheir rightsat home, at work, and in the communityisan important obligation of teachers, as educators andas citizens. The authors of this book have developed and presentedpro-. grams on statutes, regulations, and court decisions that affect teachers and school administrators. Muchof the data on which the book is based was collected duringa four-year study,-conducted by Foreivord the American Bar Association with thesupport of the Ford Founda- tion, which was designedto analyze the relationship between law and curriculum change. Dr. Stelzer servedas director of empirical research for this study, the results of whichwere summarized in 1979 in Mandate for Change: The Impact ofLaw on Curriculum Innova- tion, by Joel F. Henning et al. The Social ScienceEducation Consor- tium and the ERIC Clearinghouseon Educational Management joined with the ABA's Special Committeeon Youth Education for Citizenship in the publication of that volume. We are pleased to have the opportunityto participate in publish- ing this book on the rights of teachersasubject with important implications not only for teachers themselvesbut also for school building administrators, district officials,school board members, parents, students, and everyone who hasan interestin public education. And that means all ofus. Irving Morrissett Executive Director, Social Science Education Consortium Director, ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies/Social ScienceEducation Philip K. Piele Professor and Director ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management Preface xi PREFACE This book is designedto address the law-relatedconcerns of school teachers. School administrators,school board members, and school attorneys should also find thebook informative and useful. Parents and students will finda goodly amount of relevant school law_ However, the perspective is thatof the classroom teacher. The issues are those which teachersregularly face in regard to their rights: tenure protection, RIF rights,student disciplinary options, negligence protection, freedom of speech,privacy. This perspective has determinedthe content and emphasis of our analysis. The legal aspects of student expulsionare touched on only lightly, although teachers needto know that expulsion isa viable option and administratorsand school board members needto learn the legal requirements. Similarly,we do not deal with students' First Amendment rights, school integration,or contract law. There are perhaps twogaps in this book. First, althoughwe describe teachers' rights to speak, assemble,and organize, we donot address the legal ramifications of unionization.Unionizationthe rights of union members, collective bargaining,and collective action is a technical and specializedfield about which others have written. Furthermore,our discussions with teachers over theyears have indicated that this is notan area of great concern to most of them. Nor have we attempted to deal withsome of the emerging issues in the legislativearena, among them teactzer accountabilityand xii Preface teacher competency. Most of thelaws related to theseareas are too new and untested to warrant analysis. Fornow, it must suffice to say that teachers have alwaysbeen subject to evaluationby their supervisors. Tenure lawsguarantee teachers due process, should evaluations lead to demotiOnor dismissal. Indeed, in at leastone state (Washington) the courts have useda new statewi le evaluation procedure to strengthen teachers'tenure protection. Constitutional guarantees protect teachers from invidiousdiscrimina'ion in the euise of evaluation. Any book that tries to deal withthe legal concerns of teachers in 50 different states necessarily sufferssomewhat from overgeneraliza- tion. Every state has itsown laws and individual peculiarities; what