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New Teacher Loses Appeal Over ISD’s Error
That Led to Certification Becoming Inactive
Ruling: The education commissioner lacks the authority to grant relief to a teacher intern who claimed that his sponsoring ed-prep program dropped him, and SBEC deactivated his certification, when his employing ISD falsely reported that he had been fired. Jeffrey Campbell v. Harlingen [C]ISD, No. 021-R10-03-2022. Signed Aug. 17 by Education Commissioner Mike Morath.

Campbell was working for HCISD as a probationary contract teacher during the 2021-22 school year — under a SBEC-issued interim educator certificate — when the school board voted, in December 2021, to propose terminating his contract for “good cause.”

Campbell claimed that HCISD misinformed his sponsoring ed-prep program (Texas Teachers of Tomorrow) that he had been terminated, which caused the program to drop him and SBEC to deactivate his interim educator certification.

In January 2022, due to Campbell’s lacking certification, HCISD’s board voted to terminate his contract as “void.” Following a sequence of events — in an action labeled as being in the best interest of the district — the board voted (in April 2022) to rescind its earlier actions to propose and terminate his contract.

The board directed that Campbell was to be on leave until his contract ended at the conclusion of the school year, and that he would be paid all the compensation to which he was entitled under the contract.

Campbell appealed to the commissioner seeking various forms of relief, including asking that he be paid another year’s salary.
He claimed, among other things, that he had been retaliated against for being a “whistleblower” on the district’s COVID-19 mask policies.

The commissioner overruled all of Campbell’s claims, mostly because of Campbell’s failure to state a violation of state school laws for which the commissioner has jurisdiction.

The commissioner noted, for instance, that Campbell failed — as a step that could trigger jurisdiction by the commissioner — to first pursue a grievance at the local district level (that would end with a school board decision) over a complaint that the district’s administration had incorrectly informed his ed-prep program that he had been terminated.