Paul Blume's Columns - Follow your own policies (February 2011) Otherwise, your school district may wind up on the losing side in court. In case you’ve forgotten or perhaps never knew it in the first place, state law provides that every school must have personnel policies, and those policies are part of every teacher’s contract as though set out on the document itself. That means, of course, that if you violate your own personnel policies, you could find yourself in court on the losing side. Not every detour results in some actionable event, but there are times when it can cause serious problems if you act without consulting, and following, your policies. Mind you, I’m talking only about personnel policies here, but be aware of your other policies, too. Possible land mines there as well. A.C.A. §6-17-204(a) states: “The personnel policies of all school districts shall be considered to be incorporated as terms of the certified personnel contracts and shall be binding upon the certified personnel and the school district.” Be aware, though, that, since the school board “drafted” the policies, any court review of a policy disagreement between a district and an employee will be done so as to give the non-drafter, i.e., the employee, the benefit of every doubt. That is, not you. That makes it also of considerable importance that, when drafting and enacting policies, you make policies that you can follow. Don’t, for example, let an insistent personnel policies committee intimidate you into inserting something into policy that is unwise, cumbersome or unnecessarily limiting of your discretion as a board. In a fairly recent lawsuit, a school district lost a claim by a former teacher that she did not resign when she failed to return her signed contract within the 30 days required by district policy. There has been some talk here and there that the court decided that the 30-day return provision of the policies was invalid. Not so! ASBA’s Model Policy Service includes a provision that requires that a teacher return her signed contract within 30 days of her receipt of the contract and that failure to return the contract within that period of time constitutes a resignation by the teacher without any further action required by the superintendent or board. (Model Policy No. 3.5). That is based on A.C.A. §6-17-1506(c)(1), which states, “No teacher shall be required to sign and return a contract for the next school year any sooner than thirty (30) days after the contract is issued to the teacher.” In this case, the teacher denied having received the contract by mail (in this case, certified mail would have been helpful), and she appeared to be avoiding actually receiving the contract. The policy further states that “The date of receipt of the contract shall be presumed to be the date of a cover memo which will be attached to the contract.” In the case mentioned above, there was no cover memo attached to the contract. The court did not find that the automatic resignation provision of Policy 3.5 was invalid. Instead, it held that there was no basis for the counting of the 30 days, even though there was considerable evidence that school officials had made every attempt to get the contract to the teacher over a period of several months. Had the district attached a cover memo to the contract and sent it to the teacher, the outcome of the trial probably would have been very different. I discussed this column with my (relatively) new pooch, Charlotte, successor to the sainted Mary Margaret. Charlotte is a goldendoodle and still a puppy. A very big puppy, but a puppy nonetheless. The whole idea of adhering to policies made her very happy. But then, everything makes Charlotte happy. Everything. So I’m not sure yet how she really feels about this column. But it makes her happy. Good enough for me! |
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