Blunt v. Marion County School Bd.

• Decision Date: 14 July 1975
• Docket Number: No. 74-1279,74-1279
• Citation: 515 F.2d 951
• Parties: 10 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 10,344 Hattie M. BLUNT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MARION COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 951

515 F.2d 951

10 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 10,344

Hattie M. BLUNT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MARION COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 74-1279.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

July 14, 1975.

Clyde Ellis, Gainesville, Fla., Kent Spriggs, Tallahassee, Fla., John F. Welch, Ocala, Fla., for plaintiff-appellant.

John P. McKeever, Ocala, Fla., for Marion County School Bd.

Herbert D. Sikes, Charles E. Miner, Jr., Tallahassee, Fla., for State Bd. of Education.

Clinton H. Coulter, Jr., Gen. Counsel, Dept. of State, Tallahassee, Fla., for Richard Stone.

Larry Levy, Gen. Counsel, Office of the Comptroller, Tallahassee, Fla., for Fred O. Kickinson, Jr.

Robert Shevin, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, Fla.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Before RIVES, WISDOM and COLEMAN, Circuit Judges.

COLEMAN, Circuit Judge:

In May, 1969, on grounds of incompetency the school board of Marion County, Florida, terminated the employment contract of Mrs. Hattie M. Blunt, a black school teacher of some twenty-five years experience. Unsuccessful in an administrative appeal from the school board decision, ¹ Mrs. Blunt initiated this civil rights suit, ² challenging the constitutionality of her dismissal. She alleged that in the course of proceedings before the Marion County School Board and the Florida State Board of Education certain of her constitutional rights had been violated. Specifically, her claims ran as follows:

(1) The evidence before the Marion County School Board was, in a constitutional sense, insufficient to support a finding of incompetency. Thus, says Mrs. Blunt, she was dismissed on arbitrary and capricious grounds in violation of substantive due process;

(2) The dismissal was the result of an effort on the part of the Marion County School Board to voluntarily desegregate its faculties. Under these circumstances, the school board was under an obligation to prove that Mrs. Blunt was incompetent as compared to all other teachers in the system a burden which the school board had failed to carry; and

(3) She was denied procedural due process in the course of the administrative proceedings before the Florida State Board of Education.

The relief sought was reinstatement of Mrs. Blunt's teaching contract, along with back pay and accrued retirement benefits.

After a bench trial before the District Court for the Middle District of Florida, judgment was entered in favor of the Marion County School Board and the State Board of Education on the basis of failure of proof, Blunt v. Marion County School Board (M.D.Fla., 1973), 366 F.Supp. 727.

We affirm the judgment of the District Court in all respects.

The Substantive Due Process Claim

The essence of Mrs. Blunt's substantive due process claim is that the evidence presented to the Marion County School Board was insufficient to support a finding of incompetency. A review of the transcript of the testimony presented at her dismissal hearing in May, 1969 supplies the following facts:

Prior to her dismissal at the close at the 1968-69 school year, Mrs. Blunt had taught elementary education in the Marion County school system for twenty-five years. During the 1968-69 term she was employed as a second grade teacher at Fessenden School under a "continuing contract". Under this contractual agreement, Mrs. Blunt could not be dismissed except for "good and sufficient reasons". ³ Further, if a dismissal recommendation was made, she was entitled to notice and a hearing before contract termination could become effective.

Throughout the 1968-69 school year Mrs. Blunt's teaching performance was observed by three supervisors: Mr. Eugene Broxton, the principal at Fessenden School; Mrs. Margaret Cody, the assistant principal in charge of elementary education at Fessenden; and Mrs. Marie Keeney, early childhood coordinator for the Marion County school system. As early as October, 1968, Mr. Broxton, Mrs. Cody, and Mrs. Keeney agreed that Mrs. Blunt's performance was not sufficient to meet the educational needs of her children. On November 7, Mrs. Keeney submitted a written evaluation of Mrs. Blunt's work, which was reviewed with Mrs. Blunt by Mr. Broxton and Mrs. Cody. Mrs. Blunt was hostile to the criticisms set forth in the evaluation, and she displayed an unreceptive attitude to the assistance offered by her supervisors. On November 12, 1968, Mr. Broxton sent Mrs. Blunt a letter detailing the deficiencies noted in Mrs. Keeney's evaluation and offering assistance for the improvement of her teaching techniques.

Further evaluations of Mrs. Blunt's work were made on November 20 and December 5, neither of which indicated any substantial improvement in her instructional technique. These were followed by a letter from Mr. Broxton, dated December 12, in which he stated that Mrs. Blunt would have to improve in her performance or else a recommendation would be made for her dismissal. Thereafter, Mrs. Blunt continued to exhibit the same belligerent attitude toward offers of assistance from her supervisors, so, in March, 1969, Mr. Broxton recommended that she be dismissed. In a letter to the Marion County School Board dated March 25, 1969, Mr. Robert Dunwoody, superintendent of schools for Marion County, detailed the charges which prompted the recommendation for Mrs. Blunt's dismissal:

Mrs. Blunt has exhibited inadequate knowledge of subject matter. She has not exhibited good teaching practices in the conduct of her classes. As a direct result of poor planning and poor organization, student motivation has been poor. Her management of students and class discipline has not met acceptable standards.

In due course, the school board scheduled a hearing on Mrs. Blunt's dismissal for May 7, 1969. On May 2, Mrs. Blunt's attorney was provided with a bill of particulars respecting the charges against Mrs. Blunt. ⁴

At the May 7 hearing Mr. Broxton, Mrs. Cody, and Mrs. Keeney testified on the instructional deficiencies they had observed in Mrs. Blunt's teaching performance during the 1968-69 school year. Each of these witnesses had visited Mrs. Blunt's classroom on numerous occasions throughout the school year, ⁵ and all of them noted essentially the same shortcomings with respect to Mrs. Blunt's performance. The cumulative effect of their testimony revealed the following points:

(1) Mrs. Blunt exhibited poor organizational skills with respect to her utilization of group teaching techniques. Although she attempted to divide her class into groups to teach certain subjects, she failed to use this technique in an efficient manner. While teaching one group of students, she would leave the remaining students idle without an assignment.

(2) Mrs. Blunt's speech was at times difficult to understand. She had the habit of covering her mouth with her hand when she spoke, and, as a result, her speech was often muffled and unintelligible.

(3) Mrs. Blunt employed poor grammatical usage in her speech, and her grammatical errors were repeated by her students. Her most common grammatical mistake was the frequent use of double negatives.

(4) Mrs. Blunt misspelled words which she wrote on the blackboard, and, in turn, her students would copy these words.

(5) Mrs. Blunt exhibited poor writing techniques, which, in turn, were reflected in her students' work. She would often use capital letters improperly, and she failed to employ proper spacing between words which she wrote on the blackboard.

(6) Mrs. Blunt exhibited instructional deficiencies in the teaching of math, phonics, and spelling. She employed a confusing and improper technique in teaching her children subtraction, she made improper use of the "little word" technique in teaching phonics, and she attempted to teach spelling when the children had not mastered the letters of the alphabet.

(7) Mrs. Blunt exhibited inadequate skills in the use of audio-visual aids. She did not use these aids sufficiently, and when she did use them, she did so in an improper manner. On one occasion, Mrs. Blunt was observed while using a film strip, and she "half framed" the entire film.

(8) Mrs. Blunt failed to keep up to date in handling administrative matters, grading papers, and maintaining a plan book. She failed to keep proper health records on her students, and in one instance she allowed a child who was supposed to be in the third grade to remain in her class for three months before advancing him. She was far behind in grading work submitted by her students, and thus her students were not given timely feedback on their progress. Her plan book was kept in a disorderly and deficient manner.

(9) As a probable result of Mrs. Blunt's instructional deficiencies, many of her students were placed in lower ability groups when they were advanced to the third grade and even to the fourth grade. Her students were unable to keep up with those students who had other second grade teachers at Fessenden, when they were promoted to higher grades.

(10) Mrs. Blunt exhibited hostility to her supervisors when they offered assistance to improve her performance. On one occasion, Mrs. Blunt told Mr. Broxton that she did not need his help and that she did not want him to visit her classroom.

To contradict this testimony, Mrs. Blunt testified that none of her supervisors had ever called her attention to the fact that she misspelled words, nor had anyone informed her that her plan book was inadequate. Further, she denied that she covered her mouth when she spoke or that she had been hostile to offers of assistance.

But perhaps the most crucial aspect of Mrs. Blunt's case was that she had always received satisfactory evaluations in the past, and that Mr. Broxton himself had rated her a competent teacher for the five school years immediately preceding the 1968-69 term. On cross examination by Mrs. Blunt's attorney, Mr. Broxton explained this seeming inconsistency in his evaluations of Mrs. Blunt's work. He stated that he had never...