Board of Educ. of Prince George's County v. Waeldner

• Decision Date: 31 January 1984
• Docket Number: No. 45,45
• Citation: 470 A.2d 332,298 Md. 354
• Parties: , 15 Ed. Law Rep. 1173 BOARD OF EDUCATION OF PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Maryland v. Robert WAELDNER. Sept. Term 1983.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 354

298 Md. 354

470 A.2d 332, 15 Ed. Law Rep. 1173

BOARD OF EDUCATION OF PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Maryland v. Robert WAELDNER.

No. 45 Sept. Term 1983.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Jan. 31, 1984.

Andrew W. Nussbaum and Paul M. Nussbaum, Greenbelt, for appellant.

Susan W. Russell, Baltimore (Walter S. Levin and Weinberg & Green, Baltimore, on the brief) for appellee.

Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and SMITH, ELDRIDGE, COLE, DAVIDSON, RODOWSKY and COUCH, JJ.

MURPHY, Chief Judge.

Maryland Code (1978), § 6-202(a) of the Education Article authorizes a County Board of Education, upon recommendation of the County Superintendent of Schools, to suspend or dismiss a teacher for immorality, misconduct in office, insubordination, incompetence or willful neglect of duty. Section 6-202(a)(4) authorizes an appeal "from the decision of the county board to the State Board [of Education]."

In this case, appellant Waeldner, a tenured special education teacher in the Prince George's County public school system, was dismissed from his employment by the County Board after a § 6-202(a) disciplinary hearing. He appealed to the State Board which, after a hearing, modified the disciplinary sanction from dismissal to suspension for a designated period of time. The County Board appealed the decision of the State Board to the Circuit Court for Prince George's County; that court affirmed the State Board's decision. On further appeal by the County Board, the Court of Special Appeals affirmed the circuit court's judgment in an unreported opinion. We granted certiorari to consider (1) whether the State Board exceeded its statutory authority when it altered the disciplinary penalty imposed upon Waeldner by the County Board and (2) whether the State Board's decision was arbitrary and capricious.

I.

Waeldner began teaching in the public schools of Prince George's County in 1973. Prior to that time he had been a Catholic priest and teacher in Japan for over twenty years.

At the time of the disciplinary incident involved in this case, Waeldner was teaching grounds keeping and home maintenance to severely retarded males of secondary school age at the Princess Garden Special Center for the mentally handicapped. His teaching objective was to train students to enter the employment market as handymen or custodial workers. Waeldner's teaching program consisted of working with a small group of students in the classroom for several days a week and at various outdoor worksites on the remaining school days. Parental approval was a prerequisite to placement in Waeldner's classes. His teaching performance at Princess Garden was consistently evaluated as excellent by his principal. Examples of the principal's written comments on Waeldner's work included: "excellent rapport with staff, parents and community"; "cares for children, understands children, and brings out the best in them." On one occasion, however, Waeldner was admonished by the principal for disciplining a student by isolating him in a clothes locker.

On February 28, 1980, Waeldner, without authorization, left four of his six students under a teaching aide's supervision at the Greenbelt Recreational Center where they were to clean the building and the adjacent grounds. He took the two remaining students with him to work on other grounds keeping projects. One of the boys, Ronald Fluke, was the lowest functioning student in the group that day; the other, Michael Kenyon, age 15, was a new student with a history of disciplinary problems. When it began snowing, Waeldner took the two boys to a workshed located behind his home; he directed them to work on a project at this site. Kenyon became disruptive and began throwing glass bottles and mishandling the saw he was using. Waeldner ordered him to stop his disruptive behavior but to no avail. At this point, Waeldner decided that Kenyon needed to be "timed out," a behavior modification technique used with special education students whereby the student is isolated and kept still in order to calm him and to cause him to reflect on his misbehavior. Waeldner required Kenyon to leave the shed and kneel outside on two wooden blocks under a plastic-covered picnic table for an extended period in below-freezing, snowy weather. During a part of the time that Kenyon was being "timed out" under the picnic table, Waeldner was in his home. Throughout the incident, Fluke remained inside the shed, shivering and shaking from the cold. A neighbor who witnessed the episode called the police who, upon investigation, found Kenyon sobbing and crying aloud; both boys were removed to police headquarters.

In terminating Waeldner's employment, the County Board concluded that in leaving students with a teaching aide, and removing Fluke and Kenyon from an authorized work area to his own home without permission, Waeldner violated the rules and policies of the County Board and was guilty of misconduct in office and incompetency. In addition, the County Board determined that the "timing out" episode involving Michael Kenyon subjected him to unreasonable punishment in violation of a specified State Board bylaw and also constituted misconduct in office and incompetency.

Upon Waeldner's appeal to the State Board, an agency hearing examiner took additional testimony and filed extensive findings of fact and conclusions of law. ¹ He agreed with the County Board that Waeldner's unauthorized action in bringing the two boys to his home and in his "timing out" treatment of Kenyon amounted, under the circumstances, to misconduct in office. He expressed doubt that Waeldner's conduct inflicted unreasonable punishment upon Kenyon in violation of the State Board bylaw. He made no finding as to Waeldner's incompetency. He said:

"Throughout the period of Mr. Waeldner's employment his evaluations have been satisfactory, and on more than one occasion he has been praised for his performance. His patience with and his concern for severely retarded children were testified to by parents who had a great deal of contact with him, and whose judgment is therefore entitled to weight. His practice of timing out children by having them kneel was known to his principal, who had observed the procedure on a number of occasions and had never criticized it."

After considering all of the evidence, including the testimony of parents and other character witnesses on Waeldner's behalf (which the County Board refused to hear), the hearing examiner concluded that dismissal in the circumstances was too severe a penalty. He recommended instead that Waeldner be suspended without pay for a period not to exceed six months commencing from the date of the County Board's decision.

The State Board adopted the hearing examiner's recommended findings and conclusions, except that which found that Waeldner's treatment of Kenyon did not constitute unreasonable punishment in violation of the State Board's bylaw. The State Board agreed with the County Board that the bylaw had been violated. It suspended Waeldner without pay from the date of the County Board's decision through the 1980-81 school year.

The County Board's position on judicial review of the State Board's decision was that once the latter determined that a factual basis existed for the County Board to impose a disciplinary sanction upon Waeldner, it had no authority to modify the punishment thereby imposed but only to determine whether the County Board's dismissal action was authorized. As indicated, both the circuit court and the Court of Special Appeals found no merit in this argument.

II.

Before us, the County Board vigorously maintains that the power to dismiss a teacher is vested solely in the County Board. It says that the State Board's authority on appeal under § 6-202(a)(4) "is limited to determinations of whether the County Board's actions were irregular or an abuse of authority and whether there is adequate evidence to justify the statutory grounds for dismissal relied upon by the County Board." Accordingly, the County Board argues that the State Board was without power to decide that a penalty less severe than dismissal was warranted and in directing that suspension be the punishment imposed upon Waeldner. The County Board relies primarily on Halsey v. Board of Education of Garrett County, 273 Md. 566, 331 A.2d 306 (1975), and Zeitschel v. Board of Education of Carroll County, 274 Md. 69, 332 A.2d 906 (1975).

III.

Our cases have long made clear that the State Board has very broad statutory authority over the administration of the public school system in this State. Under § 2-205(g)(2) of the Education Article, the State Board is directed to "exercise general control and supervision over the public schools and educational interests of this State." Section 2-205(b) empowers the State Board to "[d]etermine the elementary and secondary educational policies of this State"; § 2-205(c) directs the State Board to "adopt bylaws, rules, and regulations for the administration of the public schools." Section 2-205(e) provides that the State Board "shall explain the true intent and meaning of the provisions of ... [the Education Article] ... within its jurisdiction"; the same subsection mandates that the State Board "shall decide all controversies and disputes under these provisions" and further states that "[t]he decision of the Board is final."

The totality of these provisions has been described as a visitatorial power of such comprehensive character as to invest the State Board "with the last word on any matter concerning educational policy or the administration of the system of public education." Resetar v. State Board of Education, 284 Md. 537, 556, 399 A.2d 225, cert. denied, 444 U.S. 838, 100 S.Ct. 74, 62 L.Ed.2d 49 (1979); Wilson v. Board of Education, 234 Md. 561, 565, 200 A.2d 67 (1964). The broad sweep of the State Board's visitatorial power has been consistently recognized and applied since the principle was first enunciated in 1879 in ...