Teacher files appeal over nonrenewal after absences

A teacher filed an appeal to the commissioner of education regarding the nonrenewal of her contract. The district responded to the appeal, arguing that it had properly nonrenewed the teacher's contract based on excessive absences.

The teacher worked for the district as a special education teacher under a one-year term contract. During the school year, she took personal leave beyond her annual 10 days provided under state law and local policy. According to board policy, after she had exhausted her 10 days, her absences resulted in docked pay. A review of the record showed that the teacher took 11 unapproved docked days during the school year. In addition, she was late to work 19 times and failed to sign out on the faculty timesheet 18 times. She received several written notices regarding her noncompliance with the policy but continued to miss work.

The teacher asserted that she had valid reasons for her absences that were protected by law. Specifically, she fell at work, which required medical evaluation, and she had medically documented limitations. She also argued that she was the only child of two elderly parents and had requested leave pursuant to the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to care for them.

The teacher did not dispute that she exceeded her annual leave allotment and that this violated the district's policies. However, she argued that the district did not fairly consider the facts of her case. Specifically, although she did not request FMLA until after she had accrued multiple absences, the district's policy allowed for a retroactive grant of FMLA under extenuating circumstances. The teacher argued that she presented extenuating circumstances to justify this discretionary grant of retroactive leave after her FMLA request, which would have reduced her docked days.

The commissioner of education rejected this argument, noting that retroactive leave is discretionary and not mandated by federal or state law. The district's director of leave administration testified that the district has a practice of granting discretionary retroactive leave approval for up to seven days from a leave application, if an employee presents extenuating circumstances for untimely completion of leave documents. Examples of extenuating circumstances would be when the employee is incapacitated or in a facility. 

In this case, the teacher had email access while she took leave to care for her mother and therefore the district did not consider her circumstances to be extenuating. However, and even more importantly, even if the district had granted the teacher seven days of retroactively approved leave, she still would have had more than three unapproved docked days, and only one docked day violated district policy. 

In this case, the teacher's first docked day was on Jan. 24, when she failed to report to work despite being cleared to work by her doctor the previous day. She did not submit a request for FMLA to care for her mother until June, when she already had at least six docked days, any one of which was a policy violation, and the district had already proposed her contract for nonrenewal for her absenteeism.

The commissioner determined that the district had properly nonrenewed the teacher's contract and denied her appeal.