Court weighs in on teacher rights at district-campus charter schools

Texas law sets out academic performance standards for Texas school districts and campuses. The law further authorizes the commissioner of education to implement interventions and sanctions if a school district does not satisfy those standards. 

One option available to a district seeking to avoid those interventions and sanctions is that it may, under certain circumstances, contract with an "operating partner" for the partner to operate an underperforming campus within the school district.  A school district that enters into such a contract qualifies for an exemption from intervention and sanctions, and also qualifies for additional funding, if the entity with which it contracts is either (1) the governing body of an open-enrollment charter school, or (2) an entity granted a charter by the school district. Simply stated, the partnered campus becomes a "district-campus" charter school located within the school district.

One of the questions presented by this law relates to the rights of teachers who work at a school district and are assigned to a campus that becomes a district-campus charter school.  

The commissioner of education adopted rules that state that "The operating partner must have sole authority over the assignment of all district employees to the campus, including initial and final authority to approve the assignment of all district employees or contractors to the campus" and "The operating partner must have initial, final and sole authority to supervise, manage, evaluate and rescind the assignment of any district employee or district contractor from the campus." 

According to this language, it would appear that teachers employed by a school district who are assigned to a district-campus charter would lose rights that are otherwise available to them as a classroom teacher in a traditional school district, such as the right to a contract. A lawsuit was therefore filed to challenge the rule and, following a decision by the district court, was appealed to the court of appeals.

The court of appeals drew a distinction between teachers who are employed by a school district and teachers who are employed by a charter school operator. Teachers employed by a traditional school district are given very specific rights by statute, including a right to a contract and to file a grievance regarding conditions of work. 

The court of appeals noted that the law related to district-campus charter schools only limits the laws that a district-campus charter school must follow; it does not purport to divest public school teachers of their statutory rights. Therefore, the court of appeals held that that the Texas Legislature did not intend for that provision to deprive Texas teachers who happen to be assigned to a district-campus charter school, but who are still employees of their school district, of their statutory rights. 

The court noted that depriving teachers of those rights could create an enormous disincentive for teachers to agree to teach at a charter school at all. Therefore, teachers employed by a traditional school district who are assigned to work at a district-campus charter school retain their statutory rights.

However, teachers who are hired directly by the charter school operator and assigned to work at a district-campus charter school are subject to a different standard. 

Employees hired directly by the operating partner of a district-campus charter school do not have the same statutory rights and protections that public school district teachers in Texas have. Therefore, those individuals are not entitled to additional protections that they would not otherwise have simply because they are assigned to a district-campus charter school.

The court of appeals held that, to the extent that the commissioner's rules run contrary to this decision, they are invalid.