ADVERSE EMPLOYMENT ACTIONS AND PUBLIC SCHOOL ...

eassignment cases were tied to employee actions such as interpersonal strife and failed
leadership on the part of the administrator. In Terry v. Woods (1992), Terry was reassigned to an
elementary school from his previous position as high school principal due to his numerous
conflicts with faculty and his establishment of a school policy not in accordance with school
system policy. Because Terry had not acted in a manner fitting termination, he was simply
reassigned. Because Terry had years remaining on his contract and could not be non-renewed, he
was simply reassigned. Reassignment is a viable measure for a school system to avoid
termination proceedings and to placate the faculty and parents at schools where administrators
have created substantial friction and been engulfed in conflict.
Tables 2-7 presented the various adverse employment actions executed by school
systems. Table 3 revealed that school systems use demotion sparingly and only in cases where a
school administrator has clearly not established the credibility to remain in his/her position, yet
at the same time he/she has not earned a termination. Clearly, one can discern the strong parallel
that exists between demotions and reassignments. Moving on, school systems, almost as
sparingly, employ suspensions against school administrators as shown in Table 4. School
systems did not tackle this action often because it required the school system to weigh the
severity of the situation. Table 5 revealed that school systems only tackled terminations when the
behaviors of the administrator were so strong that no other plan of action was available. Lastly,
Tables 6 and 7 displayed the school systems’ penchant for avoiding termination proceedings by
either non-renewing school administrators or reassigning them to other positions apart from their
area of controversy. Clearly, school systems seek to avoid legal conflict by using non-renewal
and reassignment as their primary form of employment action against school administrators.
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