34 N.W.2d 689 | Minn. | 1948
The questions for decision are:
(1) Whether teacher tenure rights may be acquired to the position of administrative assistant to the superintendent of schools, the duties of which include no classroom teaching and which involve research and statistical work incidental to school administration by the superintendent with little or no superintending or supervising of classroom instruction;
(2) Whether a classroom teacher having teacher tenure rights abandons those rights by accepting employment of an administrative nature in the office of the superintendent of schools, where the parties did not manifest an express intention that such employment involved an abandonment of teacher tenure rights as a classroom *205 teacher and the practice of the employer school board had been to recognize that under such circumstances the employe's tenure rights were preserved; and
(3) Whether a school board is estopped from denying that an employe acquired tenure rights in a nontenure position by conduct indicating that the position is subject to tenure and that the employe was entitled to tenure rights therein upon requisite duration of his employment therein.
1. Some facts appear without dispute. The others we shall accept as found by the trial court. The record is a voluminous one, consisting of almost 1,100 pages of testimony and numerous exhibits. The trial court's findings are comprehensive, accurate, and fair. For us to undertake a detailed statement and discussion of the evidence would extend the opinion to unreasonable length. It is sufficient to say that the evidence not only sustains the findings, but also that in their most controversial aspects defendant's extrajudicial statements and conduct tend in large degree to support them. This is as far as we need go. Our function as an appellate court does not require us to discuss and review in detail the evidence for the purpose of demonstrating that it supports the trial court's findings, and our duty is performed when we consider all the evidence and determine that it reasonably supports them. Maust v. Maust,
The facts will be stated only so far as here pertinent. In 1934, defendant was employed by plaintiff as a probationary junior high school classroom teacher at a salary of $170 per month. He was reëmployed in the years 1935, 1936, and 1937. By reëmployment in 1937 he acquired teacher tenure rights under § 130.24.
In September 1940, there was a change in the nature of defendant's work, upon which he predicates a claim of tenure rights, to the position of administrative assistant to the superintendent of schools. From September 1940 to September 1941, his employment was half-time as a classroom high school teacher and half-time in the administrative offices of plaintiff doing statistical and research work. *206 From June 16 to August 8, 1941, he taught in summer school. Beginning in September 1941, he devoted all his time to the work in the superintendent's office and was given the title of "research assistant" and an increase in salary to $260 per month. In January 1942, he was assigned to the position of "administrative assistant to the superintendent" of schools at a salary of $315 per month, and he continued in that position until it was abolished in September 1943. Defendant accepted these positions without express qualification, condition, reservation, or mention of the tenure rights he then had as a high school classroom teacher. Plaintiff, in effect, admitted in its reply below and in its brief and argument here that its practice under such circumstances has been to recognize that the tenure rights of a classroom teacher assigned to administrative work in the superintendent's office were preserved, and that pursuant to such practice numerous classroom teachers have accepted assignments to administrative work.
In neither the position of "research assistant" nor that of "administrative assistant to the superintendent" did defendant perform any services as a classroom teacher. He did little or no work in superintending or supervising classroom instruction.
While there may have been some differences between the duties of "research assistant" and "administrative assistant to the superintendent of schools," we shall assume for purposes of decision that, except for differences in titles and compensation, the two positions were substantially the same in order to afford defendant a basis for his claim of having acquired tenure under § 130.24 by three consecutive years of employment in those positions, followed by reëmployment afterward as a classroom teacher. The work in both positions was administrative in nature and involved, as has been said, no classroom teaching. The work consisted of research and statistical studies incidental to school administration; the handling of contracts with the state department of education; transacting business with such state officials as the state superintendent of instruction, the attorney general, the state auditor, and the like; administering teaching personnel, including the handling of contracts, applications *207 for positions as teachers, correspondence, and similar matters; and school participation in war activities. While there is a finding that defendant did little or no superintending or supervising of classroom instruction, the evidence shows that whatever superintending and supervising thereof there was consisted not of direct superintendence and supervision of classroom instruction, but of work relating and incidental to school administration as such by the superintendent.
When the position of administrative assistant to the superintendent was abolished in September 1943, defendant requested assignment to his former duties "in instructional and curriculum research" under the direction of the assistant superintendent in charge of secondary schools, or to some comparable position where he could best serve. Presumably, he meant by that to the position of administrative assistant to the superintendent or one equivalent thereto. Instead, he was assigned to high school classroom teaching, in which he continued thereafter. At the time of trial, the duration of his service was such as to entitle him to tenure rights as a high school classroom teacher, which the trial court held he had acquired.
2. The teacher tenure act applies only in cities of the first class (§ 130.23), to which the city of Minneapolis belongs. Those entitled to the benefit of the act are teachers as defined in § 130.22, subd. 2, and certain other persons therein enumerated. This section reads:
"The term 'teacher' includes every person regularly employed, as a principal, or to give instruction in a classroom, or to superintend or supervise classroom instruction, or as placement teacher and visiting teacher. Persons regularly employed as counselors and school librarians shall be covered by these sections as teachers if certificated as teachers or as school librarians."
At the outset, it appears that defendant was not employed as a principal, a person giving classroom instruction, a placement teacher, a visiting teacher, a counselor, or a librarian. His alleged right to tenure, therefore, is made to depend upon whether he was regularly employed to superintend or supervise classroom instruction. *208 In passing upon this question we shall assume, without so deciding, that his employment in the superintendent's office during the school years beginning in 1940, 1941, and 1942 was the equivalent of the probationary period required by § 130.23, even though during the year 1940-1941 he devoted only one-half of his time to such employment, and that his employment as a classroom teacher in the school year beginning in 1943 and the years thereafter entitled him to tenure under the act if the position of "administrative assistant to the superintendent" was one subject to tenure rights.
It is elementary that the enumeration in § 130.22, subd. 2, of those entitled to the benefits of the teacher tenure act is exclusive. School employes not enumerated among those entitled to tenure are excluded. Brintle v. Board of Education,
The rules governing decision here were settled in Eelkema v. Board of Education,
"* * * The word 'superintend' as used in the phrase 'superintend or supervise class-room instruction' in the tenure act is plainly used solely in connection with the phrase 'class-room instruction' and not with reference to the broad duties and responsibilities of a superintendent of schools. Its sense is very like that of 'supervise,' which follows it. A superintendent of schools may be said to superintend class-room instruction, but that is a small part of his duties and responsibilities. He would never be designated as a 'superintendent of class-room instruction.' "
A part partakes of the nature of the whole. Defendant's work as administrative assistant to the superintendent having been part of and incidental to the work of the superintendent, it partook of the nature of that work; it was administrative in the same sense that the superintendent's work was. And, because the superintendent was not engaged in superintending or supervising classroom instruction, his administrative assistant in performing the work of the superintendent was not so engaged either. It follows, therefore, that defendant was not entitled to tenure as a person regularly employed to superintend or supervise classroom instruction. *210
3. Defendant contends that, regardless of the definition of "teacher" in § 130.22, subd. 2, and the enumeration therein of those entitled to the benefits of the teacher tenure act, he is a "teacher" as defined in other statutes relating to school matters, and that those statutes evince a legislative intent that the word "teacher" shall be construed to have the same meaning in the teacher tenure act. Reliance is placed upon the doctrine that statutes in pari materia shall be construed together as part of a harmonious system of law governing the subject matter to which they relate. See, Mlenek v. Fleming,
4. While one entitled to tenure rights may abandon them, whether he does so in a particular case depends upon his intention with respect to the matter. Hosford v. Board of Education,
"Performance by appellee of administrative and supervisory duties to the exclusion of classroom teaching, cannot be held to constitute an abandonment of rights under a Tenure contract 'to teach'."
Here, there was not only no express manifestation of intention to abandon tenure rights, but some evidence of intention to preserve them. The uniform practice of plaintiff under similar circumstances of recognizing tenure rights as being in force compels an inference that in the instant case defendant also should have the benefit of the practice. Hence, it follows that defendant did not lose the tenure rights he had at the time he entered upon his employment in the superintendent's office.
5. Plaintiff is not estopped by its conduct to deny that defendant acquired tenure rights to the nontenure position of administrative assistant to the superintendent. The estoppel here asserted is what is known as estoppel by misrepresentation. See, Dimond v. Manheim,
Our conclusion is that the decision below was in all respects correct, except as it holds that defendant, by accepting employment in the superintendent's office and performing administrative duties exclusive of classroom teaching, abandoned the teacher tenure rights he then had as a high school classroom teacher, and that the decision should be modified so as to award defendant such tenure rights.
Modified in accordance with opinion.