The Courts
Texas Supreme Court
Justices Say Commissioner Used Invalid Reason
In Correctly Upholding a Teacher’s Firing by ISD
Ruling: A kindergarten teacher’s firing for not complying with her school’s student grading and testing policy over several months is affirmed, despite the education commissioner having cited an invalid legal reason for upholding the district’s termination of the teacher. North East ISD and Texas Commissioner of Education v. Dehann Riou, No. 18-0986. Issued March 27.
Background
Riou taught various elementary grades for NEISD for several years when, for School Year 2014-15, she was assigned to teach kindergarten for the first time.
She took emergency leave in April 2015. When she returned to work in August 2015, she was told that the district would soon begin the process to terminate her continuing contract.
The district, in an account contested by Riou, asserted that after she left on leave, when her class of kindergartners were assigned to a long-term substitute teacher, it was discovered that Riou had not been routinely performing required benchmark testing of her students and electronically recording their grades.
School staff said they had to scramble to see where Riou’s students were academically late in the school year, and a “high number” of her students were found to be in need of intervention and tutoring.
NEISD’s board fired Riou, based on the recommendation by an independent hearing examiner, and Riou sued the education commissioner and NEISD after the commissioner upheld her termination.
Similarly Situated Texas District
The case wound up before the Texas Supreme Court after a San Antonio appeals court agreed with a judge that Riou’s termination must be overturned because NEISD failed to provide the state-law required evidence during her termination hearing for “good cause” — as defined in the applicable law as “the failure to meet the accepted standards of conduct for the profession as generally recognized and applied in similarly situated school districts in the state.”
But, the Texas Supreme Court, in this unanimous decision, reinstated Riou’s termination by ruling that the applicable law, as written, allows school districts to prove they have “good cause” reasons to fire a continuing contract teacher without providing evidence using the “similarly situated” district standard if the rule or policy the educator was accused of violating is rooted in a state or federal law.
State and Federal Education Laws
Because of the hearing examiner’s conclusion that Riou had violated the district’s grading policies, and because student grading, assessments, etc., are mentioned numerous times in state and federal education laws for which all districts must comply, NEISD during the termination hearing did not have to provide specific evidence under the similarly situated district standard, the justices ruled.
The justices cautioned, however, that districts will still need to provide evidence of “good cause” using the “similarly situated” district standard to fire a continuing contract teacher for reasons that are not linked to a state or federal law that all districts must abide by.
No “Good Cause Per Se”
The justices, while affirming the commissioner’s ruling upholding Riou’s termination, struck down, as having no basis in the applicable law, the commissioner’s conclusion (taken from the independent hearing examiner’s recommendation) that NEISD did not have to provide evidence using the “similarly situated” district standard because the district had shown that it had “good cause per se” to fire Riou.
The justices ruled that the “good cause per se” argument that the commissioner used to uphold Riou’s termination has no basis in the applicable law governing ending continuing contracts.