ADVERSE EMPLOYMENT ACTIONS AND PUBLIC SCHOOL ...

eassigned, which was allowed per their contract and was in keeping with tenure guidelines. In
Quiring v. Board of Education (2001 Minn. App.) and Hinckley v. School Board of Independent
School District No. 2167 (2004 Minn. App.), both administrators claimed that their tenure status
and years of seniority allowed them to “bump” employees from positions regardless of their
certification. That is to say that Quiring and Hinckley believed that their seniority trumped state
required certification. This was incorrect. Most, if not all, tenure provisions provide bumping
privileges to senior employees in a field in which they are certified to work. Lastly, the
administrators in Snipes v. McAndrew (1984 S.C.), Joseph v. Lake Ridge School Corporation
(1991 Ind. App.), and Jones v. Miami-Dade County (2002 Fla. App.) all incorrectly claimed
tenure protections such as evidentiary hearings, remediation periods, and so on that were
extended to teachers but not administrators. Tenure protections, as evidenced by Table 61, are
not often mistaken by the school systems.
Breach of contract. Table 62 displays 15 cases from the 30-year period studied that
included breach of contract claims. Those 15 cases constitute 12% of the total case volume. The
adverse actions cited were evenly spread with seven reassignments, seven terminations, and one
non-renewal. This vein of information presented the most balanced findings in terms of the
prevailing party in the research study. The school administrators prevailed in five instances, the
school system in six, and four decisions were split.
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