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If you’ve used the “ask a lawyer” feature on the TCTA website, which allows you to e-mail a question of a general nature and receive a response from a staff attorney, your response may well have included the statement that you can file a grievance regarding any condition of work.

(PLEASE NOTE: TCTA recommends that members with problems or more complex matters call our Legal Department toll-free at 888-879-8282, so our attorneys can fully ascertain the facts and provide you with advice.)

What a grievance entails may be somewhat mysterious, unless you’ve been through the process. Every district is required to have a grievance policy in place, and if your district, like most, uses the policy service provided by the Texas Association of School Boards, you can likely find the policies under DGBA (Legal) and DGBA (Local), the latter containing the all-important procedural requirements. Most districts now have their policies online, so you can review the grievance policy simply by accessing the online policies. Whether you have a current issue that might give rise to a grievance or not, it’s generally a good idea to be familiar with your local grievance policy, particularly with regard to the time limits for initiating action.

A grievance is, in essence, just a formalized complaint that requires a formalized response from the district. You can complain, via the grievance procedure, about any condition of work, regardless of whether a law, rule or district policy is being violated. Of course, you can always informally bring any concern to the attention of your district’s administrators, and that is often the best way to resolve minor matters. Some policies require an informal meeting, without which an employee cannot initiate the formal grievance. But unless you initiate a grievance, there is no requirement that your administration respond at all, no timelines applicable for a response, and no assurance that any action will be taken.

It should also be noted that a grievance is inherently an adversarial action. It essentially amounts to a challenge to a decision made (or in some cases, not made) by an administrator, supervisor or your local school board. That’s why it is particularly important to follow a few key guidelines in initiating this process.

1. Contact the TCTA Legal Department immediately if you anticipate filing a grievance.

Our staff attorneys can help you develop the issues that should be addressed and draft the grievance and requested remedies appropriately. In many districts, if you fail to raise an issue or an argument at the early levels of a grievance, you may be denied the opportunity to raise that issue later. Calling the Legal Department is preferable to e-mailing, since the attorney with whom you speak may have multiple questions for you that need to be answered in developing the grievance. If you anticipate filing a grievance, you should call the Legal Department.

2. Timelines are critical.

Regardless of the merits of your grievance, if you don’t file within the timelines specified by your local grievance policy (generally 15 days or less from the time you become aware of the problem) you will likely lose for the procedural reason of filing late.

3. Pick your fights.

Though you can bring a grievance regarding any condition of work, there are some issues that rarely lend themselves to a satisfactory resolution as a result of a grievance. For example, if your principal doesn’t like you and doesn’t deal with you as cordially as he or she does other members of the staff, filing a grievance is highly unlikely to make your principal like you any better. On the other hand, if you are experiencing adverse employment consequences (reprimands, appraisal problems, compensation issues, etc.), without a grievance you may lose the right to compel the district on legal and contractual grounds to make the changes that favor you.

4. Keep your grievance paperwork brief and professional.

Though it’s great to have supporting documentation, the grievance itself should just delineate the essential facts. Though it may be a useful catharsis to write pages of the history leading to the grievance and how the person about whom you are complaining made you feel, these items should generally not be submitted with your grievance. Keep in mind that the superintendent and school board may be reviewing what you submit if you do not get a satisfactory resolution at lower levels of the process, and you want your image to be professional and reasonable.

5. Remember that “hassle” is not a synonym for “harassment.”

The legal definition of “harassment,” which may be actionable and provide a legal basis for a complaint, involves the consequences of administrative actions that create or permit a hostile environment for members of a protected class, e.g., a group of people defined by age, disability, gender, national origin, race, religion, etc. If the day-to-day actions that are making your life miserable are not based on your status in one of the protected areas, you are being hassled, not harassed. Though you can still file a grievance based on being hassled, there is generally nothing illegal per se about this conduct.

6. Try your best to resolve conflicts with nonsupervisory employees on your own, rather than making them the subject of a grievance.

Administrators generally expect professionals to resolve their own differences, when possible, and do not like to intervene in (or often be bothered with) what amounts to a personality conflict. Grievances filed against a coworker because you don’t get along often reflect badly on both you and the coworker. If the situation becomes intolerable or is damaging to the educational process, then it may ultimately need to become the subject of a grievance, but you’re generally better served by trying to resolve issues with a difficult coworker directly.

7. Think carefully about the remedy you want to request, and know when you’ve won.

It’s unlikely that you’ll get your principal or other supervisor fired (even if that’s your secret fondest wish) unless his or her conduct has crossed some serious lines. If you’re objecting to inaccurate documentation of your conduct, recognize that a change to or elimination of the inaccurate documentation is a victory – even if you don’t get an apology too.

8. As long as you aren’t at risk of missing a timeline, you usually have nothing to lose by attempting an informal resolution first (again, some policies require an informal meeting).

Often, sitting down with your principal to discuss an issue or concern you have will get you the desired outcome. A casual mention that you’d prefer not to have to file a grievance in order to get the matter resolved may also provide an incentive for the administrator to address the issue promptly and informally. That being said, if you find your administrator unresponsive when you meet informally, a formal grievance may be appropriate.

9. Generally local grievance procedures provide for a process in which you meet with your immediate supervisor first, then can appeal to his or her supervisor if the issue is not resolved satisfactorily, then can take the issue to the school board for consideration.

Sometimes our members express discomfort about meeting with the individual who is causing the problem at the first step of the grievance, but the entire process is designed to facilitate a resolution at the earliest level possible, and a well-drafted grievance contains everything that needs to be said. The last session of the Texas Legislature resulted in an important exception to the general rule of the “level one” stage of a grievance always being with your immediate supervisor, however. At the request of a TCTA member, TCTA sought and facilitated passage of HB 1622, effective Sept. 1, 2007. Under this new law, district grievance policies must allow an employee to report a grievance against a supervisor alleging the supervisor’s violation of law to a different supervisor. If your district has not yet revised the local policies in effect to reflect this change in law, it should be doing so soon; and you can still request that a grievance against a supervisor alleging a violation of law be heard by a different supervisor.

Filing a grievance can provide you with an avenue for resolving issues when other efforts have failed. Often, the basis for a grievance may simply be a supervisor’s lack of knowledge of the law, commonly relating to issues such as assigning lunch duty to teachers or calling mandatory meetings during planning and preparation periods. Our in-house staff of eight attorneys is available to assist you in using this or other appropriate mechanisms to achieve the best possible outcome for you.

Web posted: 11/29/07 from The Classroom Teacher, Winter 2007