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Texas Third Court of Appeals (Austin)
Commissioner Must Reconsider Appeal
Of Assistant Principal Whose Contract Expired
Upheld: A state judge’s ruling that the education commissioner should reconsider an appeal by an assistant principal whose contract was not renewed. Texas Commissioner of Education and Mission Cons. ISD v. Dr. Maria Solis, No. 03-18-00245-CV. Issued Aug. 22.
The justices agreed that the commissioner relied on a faulty legal basis for dismissing a claim by Solis that when she was transferred from federal programs director to assistant junior high principal two months into a one-year contract, the contract was automatically transformed under state law and MCISD policies into an educators’ term contract.
MCISD contended that under the contract’s terms, Solis’ employment simply ended on the final date of the contract because the school board took no action to extend it and because the contract specifically stated that it was not an educators’ term contract.
Solis countered that the contract automatically became an educators’ term contract, under state law and district policy, when she was reassigned to be
an assistant junior high principal — and that she thus should have been, but was not, afforded term contract protections (notice of proposed nonrenewal, the right to a hearing, etc.).
The commissioner had rejected Solis’ appeal on the grounds that she had not specifically stated in a grievance she filed with the district that her claims involved the denial of term contract protections.
The justices ruled that Solis did not have to grieve specifically the term contract issue at the local level in order to preserve her right to appeal to the commissioner.
The dispute was sent back to the commissioner for reconsideration.