Mitchell v. Board of Trustees

The Visalia High School District operates a school known as the Visalia Union High School and Junior College and also operates an evening high school. The petitioner was employed by the respondent district as a teacher and taught commercial subjects in the first named school for seven consecutive years, ending with the school year 1932-1933. During most of this time he received $2,700 a year for such services but during the year 1932-1933 he was paid $2,500 in accordance with a uniform "cut imposed that year upon all teachers in the school. During the same seven years he also taught a class in accounting in the evening high school for four hours per week, receiving therefor $1.75 per hour. In May, 1933, the petitioner was informed that his services were no longer required and when he presented himself at the beginning of the next school year he was informed that he would not be permitted to teach. No contention is here made that any particular kind of service in the district had been discontinued or that there had been any decrease in attendance.

The petitioner applied for a writ of mandate, setting forth two causes of action in his petition. The first of these related to his employment in the high school and junior college and the second to his employment in the evening high school. The prayer was for an order restoring and reinstating bim to his position and employment as a permanent teacher of commercial subjects in the high school and junior college and for a further order restoring and reinstating

The first point raised is that a finding to the effect that a purported resignation signed by the petitioner on May 16, 1932, was the result of menace, was involuntary and was coercively exacted from the petitioner, is not supported by the evidence and is contrary to law. An understanding of this point requires a statement of certain additional facts. It appears from the evidence and the findings that for some years the respondent board had pursued the practice each year of taking and accepting resignations from such teachers as would otherwise be entitled to a permanent status, the said resignations being so worded as to become effective at the close of the next succeeding school year and the same being required as a condition of such teachers being retained for the following year. In pursuance of this plan, on May 16, 1932, the petitioner was asked to sign and did sign such a resignation as of that date but to become effective on June 10, 1933. Similar resignations were secured at that time from twenty teachers in said high school, and on May 23, 1932, the respondent board adopted a resolution purporting to accept all of said resignations to take effect on June 10, 1933. On May 10, 1933, the petitioner was notified that his said resignation had been accepted and that his services would not be required after the close of that school year.

It may first be observed that the respondent board had no power to accept this resignation as of June 10, 1933. (Aldrich v. Chino School District, 109 Cal. App. 14 , 15 [ 292 Pac. 271 ].) It was dated and delivered on May 16, 1932, and accepted on May 23, 1932, and section 5.640 of the School Code provides that such a board shall have power to accept the resignation of any employee and affix the date when such resignation shall take effect, provided that such

While that part of the judgment appealed from which orders the petitioner reinstated as a permanent teacher in respondent district was correct in general, we think it went too far in one respect. The order was to restore the petitioner “to his position and employment as a permanent teacher of commercial subjects in the Visalia Union High School and Junior College”. In Cullen v. Board of Education, 126 Cal. App. 510 [ 15 Pac. (2d) 227 , 16 Pac. (2d) 272 ], the court said:

“But we should not be understood as holding that this right of tenure guarantees that a teacher must be retained in any particular school or assigned to teach any particular class or classes. This right of tenure is a right which the teacher enjoys to continue in the position or positions to which he has become elected under the statute—i. e., in a position or positions of a rank and grade equivalent to that occupied for the probationary period and to which the teacher has thus become ‘elected’ under the statute.”

It is next urged that the court erred in holding that the salary paid the petitioner for the preceding year should prevail for the year 1933-1934. It fully appears that no general salary cuts were made by the board for the year 1933-1934 and that the other teachers were paid the same salary for that year as for the preceding year. Petitioner’s employment continued by operation of law and in the absence of any evidence of a change made by the board it must be presumed that the salary continues the same. Under the circumstances which appear in the evidence the court was warranted in so holding.

Finally, it is urged that the court erred in ordering that the petitioner be reinstated and permitted to teach accounting in the evening high school for four hours a week and that he should be paid an additional amount therefor. In effect, the petitioner seems to contend that he acquired one position as a teacher in the regular high school and another and different position through his work in the evening high school. In Cullen v. Board of Education, supra, the court was inclined to hold that teaching part of the time in a day school and part of the time in an evening school con

While a permanent status may be acquired through service in one or more positions, we think the status when acquired cannot apply or relate to anytliing in excess of the regular and ordinary full-time employment of a teacher. We take it that these tenure laws, at most, give to a teacher a right to continue in full-time employment without arbitrary dismissal, and that they were not intended to apply to or cover any extra work which goes beyond the usual full-time employment. The purpose of the act is to give security in employment and to prevent dismissal without cause, and not to give a vested interest in certain classes, certain hours, or even in a certain salary. The additional work done by this petitioner was in the nature of extra work for extra pay and while it amounted to an increase in salary on condition of putting in extra time, it added nothing to his status as a permanent teacher under the tenure act. Any such additional work for additional pay does not come within the provisions of the act and any discontinuance thereof does not violate the essential provision that a teacher having a permanent status shall not be arbitrarily dismissed. For these reasons, we think the court erred in that part of its judgment which provided that the petitioner should be reinstated in so far as teaching a class in accounting in the evening high school in this district at an additional compensation.

That part of the judgment ordering the respondents “to immediately reinstate and restore said petitioner to his position and employment as a permanent teacher of commercial subjects of the Visalia Union High School District- in the

Marks, J., and Jennings, J., concurred.