Dec 19, 2008

1 Comment

Tweet

IL Decision: Paid Leave Counts for Teacher’s Tenure

After two years of teaching in School District 186, Tammy Wood was in a car accident.  Her contract had been renewed for a third year, and the District granted her request for leave for both semesters to recover.  At the end of that year, the District again renewed Wood’s contract.  She returned that fall and taught for a fourth year at District 186.

At the end of the year, the District issued Wood a letter informing her – without providing a reason - that it would not be renewing her contract for the following school year.  Wood sued the District, claiming she had tenure, and the District couldn’t terminate her contract without cause. 

The School District argued that Wood wasn’t tenured because she hadn’t taught for four consecutive years.  She taught for two, was out on disability for one whole year, and then taught for another year.  The curcuit court agreed with Wood and ordered the District to reinstate her.  The District appealed, and last week the Court of Appeals sided with Wood as well.

In Illinois, by statute, teachers reach tenure after 4 consecutive years in the same district.*  Tenure, of course, means job protection – a nontenured teacher is employed year-by-year, while a tenured teacher’s contract automatically renews – they can only be fired for cause, or as the statute puts it, “a specific reason.”

The Appellate Court said that the School Code didn’t require four years of teaching – it required four years of employment as a teacher:

It is undisputed that Wood was employed in the district as a full-time teacher for four years.  That she was granted a leave of absence from her teaching duties to recover from a serious injury does not change the fact that she was a contractual employee and that she was paid as a full-time teacher for four consecutive years, including the [year she was on leave].

Finally, it’s important to note that the District’s error was not necessarily terminating Wood, but that it didn’t give “a specific reason” for the termination.  Since she was arguably on the cusp of tenure, and there’s no rule against giving non-tenured teachers reasons for their termination, the District could have saved itself a lot of time (and money – appeals aren’t cheap) by explaining its reasoning in the first place.

 The court seemed to think the District may have omitted the “specific reason” because it didn’t have one.  In dicta, the court noted that the District renewed Wood’s contract the year after her leave, which means they must have “held a favorable view of her abilities” at the beginning of the year. 

 ———————————–

*IL School Code – 105 ILCS  5/24-11

Read the decision: Wood v. North Wamac School District No. 186