Rogers v. Board of Education, (SC 16176)

• Decision Date: 03 May 2000
• Docket Number: (SC 16176)
• Citation: 749 A.2d 1173,252 Conn. 753
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: GLORIA ROGERS v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF NEW HAVEN

252 Conn. 753

749 A.2d 1173

GLORIA ROGERS v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF NEW HAVEN

(SC 16176)

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued January 12, 2000.

Officially released May 3, 2000¹.

McDonald, C. J., and Borden, Katz, Palmer, Sullivan, Callahan and Gaffney, JS. John M. Gesmonde, for the appellant (plaintiff).

William H. Narwold, with whom were Charles D. Ray and, on the brief, Jay E. Bovilsky, for the appellee (defendant).

Opinion

CALLAHAN, J.

The plaintiff, Gloria Rogers, appeals from the judgment of the trial court dismissing her appeal from a decision of the defendant board of education of the city of New Haven (board) terminating her contract of employment. In her appeal, the plaintiff claims that the trial court incorrectly concluded that: (1) her dismissal by the defendant did not violate her state and federal procedural due process rights; and (2) there was substantial evidence in the record to support the board's conclusions. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The relevant facts as found by the hearing panel, and adopted by the board, are as follows. The plaintiff was a teacher in the New Haven school system since 1984. From that time until the date of the incident prompting her termination, her record was unblemished. On March 27, 1997, the plaintiff was a tenured teacher and was employed as an assistant principal at Jackie Robinson Middle School in New Haven. On that day, the plaintiff was summoned from an assembly for seventh and eighth grade students to a fifth and sixth grade physical education class taught by Marie Young, who had indicated that a "serious problem" had arisen and that there were no other administrators available to handle it. The plaintiff asked Cassandra Lang, a school security guard who was also in attendance at the assembly, to accompany her to the gymnasium area.

The plaintiff met Young and her twenty-two female students in the gymnasium locker room at approximately 1:00 p.m. Young informed the plaintiff that D, a student in her class, had reported a theft of $91. Upon further inquiry of D, the plaintiff concluded that only $40 was actually missing.

The plaintiff knew that the students in the class were from different neighborhoods and that interneighborhood problems often led to fighting among the students. Fearing that the theft could lead to violence outside the school, she concluded that the matter must be resolved that day, before the start of a three day weekend. The plaintiff searched student S, a suspect in the theft, in the locker room, asking her to remove her shoes and socks and to pull out her pockets. She then ordered Young and Lang to search all the students individually in Young's office, which adjoined the locker room, while she conducted a search of the locker room. Although the plaintiff never entered Young's office while the searches she ordered were being conducted, she was in the locker room directly outside Young's office during that time.

Prior to commencing the searches ordered by the plaintiff, Young loudly and emphatically warned the girls, "All right, line up, if that money is in this gym, we're going to find it, even if it's in your panties, because you could hide it anywhere." S, who already had been searched by the plaintiff, was the first student searched in the office by Young and Lang. The plaintiff wrote late passes for the students at a desk outside Young's office while the searches were being conducted because the searches extended into the next class period. After being searched, some of the students made comments to each other about what had happened in Young's office. Student S stated: "It's nasty; they made me pull down my pants and my panties"; other students made similar comments as they left Young's office, seeming to indicate that a "strip search" was being conducted. The plaintiff was either at the desk directly outside Young's office or otherwise within earshot of those students making comments while the comments were being made. The demeanor and temperament of the students indicated that something was wrong, and the plaintiff should have been aware that something was wrong. The plaintiff, however, did nothing either to investigate how the searches of the girls were being conducted or to halt the searches, even though she was in charge until the search incident concluded. In fact, the plaintiff left the area before the searches she had ordered were completed and without informing Young or Lang.

The board's administrative procedure manual provides that "[s]chool officials have the duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of all students under their authority.... At no time should school officials conduct a search which requires a student to remove more clothing than his/her shoes or jacket.... `Strip searches' of students by employees of this school district are prohibited." The plaintiff had read and reviewed the search and seizure policy of the board prior to the date of the incident. The plaintiff further understood her duty as a school official to protect the students and her responsibility as an administrator "for enforcing all of the policies of the Board of Education."

After the New Haven superintendent of schools informed the plaintiff by letter that termination of her contract was being considered on the basis of the results of an investigation of the search incident, the plaintiff requested a hearing by an impartial three person panel pursuant to General Statutes § 10-151 (d).²

The majority of the panel found that "[the plaintiff] knew or should have known from the demeanor of the students and the claims made by the students searched, in reference to the searches, that something was amiss and that she should have immediately checked to see what was going on in the office where the children were being searched." Nonetheless, a majority of the panel concluded that the plaintiff was not culpable and recommended that she not be punished. The board rejected the panel's recommendation and terminated the plaintiffs employment, relying on the factual findings of the majority, as well as referring to the factual findings of a dissenting panel member. Specifically, the board determined that, although the plaintiff knew or should have known that the student searches were improper, she did nothing to investigate or halt them, and that she had neglected her duty to enforce board policies and to protect the students' welfare. The plaintiff's administrative appeal was dismissed by the trial court.The plaintiff appealed from that judgment to the Appellate Court, and we transferred the appeal to this court pursuant to Practice Book § 65-1 and General Statutes § 51-199 (c). We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

I

The plaintiff first claims that her state and federal due process rights were violated in the following ways: (1) by the board's rejection of the findings of fact made by the hearing panel in favor of facts found only by the dissenter on the panel; (2) by the board's reliance on ex parte statements made by parents of the students searched; and (3) by the admission before the hearing panel of the hearsay statements of two students. We disagree with the plaintiff.

"When considering termination of a tenured teacher's employment contract, a school board acts, like an administrative agency, in a quasi-judicial capacity.... Barnett v. Board of Education, 232 Conn. 198, 206, 654 A.2d 720 (1995); see also Tomlinson v. Board of Education, 226 Conn. 704, 712, 629 A.2d 333 (1993). A school board has discretion to accept or reject a recommendation from an impartial hearing panel, though it is bound by the panel's findings of fact unless unsupported by the evidence.... The board is bound by the panel's findings of fact, but not by its legal conclusions or by its recommendations.... Barnett v. Board of Education, supra, 206; see also Rado v. Board of Education, 216 Conn. 541, 555, 583 A.2d 102 (1990); Petrino v. Board of Education, 179 Conn. 428, 430, 426 A.2d 795 (1980). "Judicial review of the school board's administrative decision follows established principles of administrative law. The court's ultimate duty is only to decide whether, in light of the evidence, the [board] has acted unreasonably, arbitrarily, illegally, or in abuse of its discretion.... Conclusions of law reached by the [board] must stand if the court determines that they resulted from a correct application of the law to the facts found and could reasonably and logically flow from such facts.... Barnett v. Board of Education, supra, 232 Conn. 207-208; see also Ottochian v. Freedom of Information Commission, 221 Conn. 393, 397, 604 A.2d 351 (1992); New Haven v. Freedom of Information Commission, 205 Conn. 767, 774, 535 A.2d 1297 (1988); Griffin Hospital v. Commission on Hospitals & Health Care, 200 Conn. 489, 496, 512 A.2d 199, appeal dismissed, 479 U.S. 1023, 107 S. Ct. 781, 93 L. Ed. 2d 819 (1986)." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Sekor v. Board of Education, 240 Conn. 119, 125-26, 689 A.2d 1112 (1997).

A

The plaintiffs initial due process argument is that the board incorrectly rejected the conclusions and recommendations of the majority of the hearing panel, which essentially were that the plaintiff was not incompetent or insubordinate. Instead, the plaintiff contends, the board improperly relied on the findings of the dissenting panel member to reach its decision. The dissenting panel member made numerous specific findings adverse to the plaintiff and recommended that her employment be terminated.³ The plaintiff's conclusion that the board acted improperly rests on two principal grounds: first, that the board rejected the panel's ultimate recommendation; and second, that the board stated in its decision that it had "discussed the additional Findings of Panel member John M. Romanow [the dissenter]." We disagree with the plaintiffs argument.

We reiterate the well established principle that the board is bound only by...