ADVERSE EMPLOYMENT ACTIONS AND PUBLIC SCHOOL ...

It was explained earlier that the outcome of a pre-employment action meeting is less an
issue in these proceedings so long as the meeting is held. Table 50 clearly highlights that
administrators are far more likely to prevail in litigation where the school employer has failed to
provide a pre-employment action meeting. In the cases with split decisions, the reason for the
split decision was to adequately determine attorney fees. Those cases were Benson v. Bellevue
School District (1985 Wash. App.), Sweeney v. Special School District (1985 Minn. App.), and
Rogers v. Kelly (1989 U.S. App.).
Three cases from Table 50 showed that the school systems had prevailed. The first case,
Philadelphia Association of School Administrators v. School District (1984 Pa. Commw.),
revolved around the claim of over three hundred administrators that they were denied a demotion
hearing prior to being reassigned to teaching positions during a teacher strike. The courts deemed
that to call for schools to hold a hearing for every administrator during the extenuating
circumstances presented by the strike would endanger the efficient operation of the schools. In
the next case, Caston School Corporation v. Phillips (1998 Ind. App.), Phillips argued that he
was required to have a complete set of non-renewal hearings 1 year after the board had failed to
report his non-renewal in a timely manner. Phillips had been awarded another contract and
argued that he was entitled to another round of hearings. The court did not agree and held that
the previous year’s hearings should have served as warning enough that his non-renewal was
coming. Much like Phillips, Heutzenroeder filed suit alleging that her termination without a
hearing violated her due process rights. However, the court found in Heutzenroeder v. Mesa
County Valley School District 51 (2010 U.S. App.) that her acceptance of another job and failure
to report to work or inform the school district bypassed her rights to a pre-termination hearing.
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