Edinburg Consol. Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Smith
| Decision Date | 26 May 2016 |
| Docket Number | NUMBER 13-16-00254-CV,NUMBER 13-16-00253-CV |
| Parties | EDINBURG CONSOLIDATED INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, SILVIA LEDESMA, AND CARLOS GUZMAN, Appellants, v. SOBEYDA I. SMITH, DANIEL REBOLLAR, AND MARIELY REBOLLAR, Appellees. IN RE SOBEYDA I. SMITH, DANIEL REBOLLAR, AND MARIELY REBOLLAR |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
On appeal from the 398th District Court of Hidalgo County, Texas.
On Petition for Writ of Injunction.
MEMORANDUM OPINIONBefore Chief Justice Valdez and Justices Rodriguez and Garza
In our cause number 13-16-00253-CV, appellants Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District ("ECISD"), Sylvia Ledesma, and Carlos Guzman appeal (1) an order granting a temporary injunction rendered in favor of plaintiffs below and appellees herein Sobeyda I. Smith, Daniel Rebollar, and Mariely Rebollar, and (2) an order denying their plea to the jurisdiction. Intervenor below, Lydia Elizondo Mount, individually and as next friend of Michael Edward Reed, has also appealed the order granting the temporary injunction. In our cause number 13-16-00254-CV, the appellees filed a petition for writ of injunction and an emergency motion for temporary relief pending determination of the merits of the petition. The central issue presented in these proceedings is whether appellants possess governmental or official immunity for their determination that a computer science class does not count as a weighted class for purposes of class ranking at Robert Vela High School in Edinburg, Texas. ECISD (Local) Policy provides that the "District shall include in the calculation of class rank semester grades earned in high school credit courses . . . in the following subject areas only: English, languages other than English, mathematics, science, and social studies."
We have received the clerk's and reporter's records in the appeal and have requested and received responses to the petition for writ of injunction from appellants and intervenor. Given the urgent and extraordinary nature of the issues presented herein, the appeal will be submitted to the Court without briefs. See TEX. R. APP. P. 28.3; In re Tex.Natural Res. Conservation Comm'n, 85 S.W.3d 201, 207 (Tex. 2002); In re J.S., 136 S.W.3d 716, 717 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2004, no pet.). However, in our consideration of the appeal, we are guided by the motions filed in the appeal and all pleadings filed in the original proceeding.1
We conclude that ECISD, Ledesma, and Guzman are immune from suit. Accordingly, we reverse the trial court's order granting the temporary injunction and dissolve the temporary injunction, and we reverse the trial court's denial of the pleas to the jurisdiction and render judgment dismissing the appellees' claims against ECISD, Ledesma, and Guzman for lack of jurisdiction. We dismiss the petition for writ of injunction as moot.2
Under ECISD (Local) Policy, "eligible courses" are categorized and weighted for purposes of calculating numerical grade point averages depending on whether the course is designated as an "AP" course, a "dual enrollment" course, a "Pre-AP" course, an"honors" course, or an "advanced" course." "AP" courses and "dual enrollment" courses are weighted the highest, receiving an additional "plus 10" points to the grade that the student earns on a 100 point scale.
During the 2015-2016 school year, student Mariely Rebollar was advised by her counselor, Reynaldo Garza, that one of the courses available at her school, 2904 Dual Enrollment Computer Science, would be weighted and included for grading purposes in class ranking as a "plus 10" class. The class was new and had first been available during the previous school year. It had been weighted for class ranking purposes that year, affecting a student who took the class and graduated ranked number nine during the 2014-2015 school year. Mariely's father, Daniel Rebollar, a teacher at Robert Vela, taught the class, which was primarily taken by freshmen and sophomores. Mariely, a senior, took the class and made a grade of 100. Thus, she anticipated that she would receive an additional ten points to that grade that would be included in the class rank calculations.
After Mariely completed the class, ECISD determined that the class did not constitute a core class, i.e., "a class in English, languages other than English, mathematics, science, and social studies," and the grade in that class could not be used for ranking purposes. On January 19, 2016, Ledesma, principal of the high school, issued a letter to the students who had enrolled in the class stating that the dual enrollment computer science course would not be counted in calculating the class rankings for the 2016 graduating class. This determination affected approximately seventy to eighty students who had taken the class.
On February 5, 2016, Mariely and her parents, Daniel Rebollar and Sobeyda I. Smith, filed a grievance asserting that ECISD employees told them, before Mariely registered for and attended the class, that this course would be included as a "weighted class" in calculating the class rank. They asserted that they relied on these statements in deciding to take the class and that the same class had counted as a weighted class during the previous school year. Their grievance asked ECISD to include the computer science class in calculating the 2016 class rank.
On March 4, 2016, Ledesma issued the Level I decision denying the appellees' grievance. The basis for the decision was the ECISD (Local) Policy stating that: "The district shall include in the calculation of class rank semester grades earned in high school credit courses taken in grades 9-12 in the following subject areas only: English, languages other than English, mathematics, science, and social studies."
The appellees filed a Level II appeal. On April 7, 2016, Carlos Guzman, the High School Area Director for ECISD, denied that appeal in a four-page detailed opinion. The opinion gave several rationales which can be summarized as follows:
First, Guzman reiterated that the computer science class did not qualify under ECISD (Local) Policy as a ten-point weighted dual credit class because it did not fall within one of the qualifying subject matters.
Second, the 2015-2016 ECISD course catalog did not include the 2904 computer science class but did include a different class, 2903 computer science, listed under the subject of mathematics. Guzman stated that the catalog did not address the specific course under consideration and that the catalog, created and drafted by administrative staff, was not a binding document, contained no representations that the content reflecteddistrict policy, and was intended to be utilized only as a planning tool for the students' parents. Guzman asserted that ECISD was bound to follow the ECISD (Local) Policy "regardless of what the administration chooses to publish in the course catalog."
Third, the Texas Administrative Code provision stating that computer science may be used to satisfy a "language other than English" (LOTE) requirement for graduation is not dispositive that computer science is itself a language other than English class. See TEX. ADMIN. CODE ANN. § 74.12 (West, Westlaw through 2015 R.S.) (specifying the foundation high school program requirements). Under this section, a student may take two credits in computer programming language as an alternative method for satisfying LOTE requirements for graduation. Guzman stated that the "plain language" of the statute provided that computer science courses "may" satisfy the LOTE requirement for graduation, but that did not mean that computer science courses are to be classified as LOTE for the purposes of the ECISD (Local) ten-point weight calculations for grading purposes. According to Guzman, "[h]ad this been the case, the Code drafters could have very simply used language stating that Computer Science courses constitute LOTE courses, rather than the permissive 'may be selected' language that was actually used instead." Guzman stated that even if this section created an inference that computer science classes might be classified as LOTE for the purposes of the ECISD (Local) calculation, the inference was "simply too weak to pass muster in light of the classification evidence put on by the District."
Fourth, Guzman stated that the subject matter categorization of 2904 computer science is determined by the Texas Education Agency ("TEA"), and not by ECISD. According to Guzman:
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