Scheelhaase v. Woodbury Central Community Sch. Dist., 73-1067.

• Decision Date: 28 November 1973
• Docket Number: No. 73-1067.,73-1067.
• Citation: 488 F.2d 237
• Parties: Norma SCHEELHAASE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. WOODBURY CENTRAL COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

488 F.2d 237 (1973)

Norma SCHEELHAASE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. WOODBURY CENTRAL COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 73-1067.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted September 11, 1973.

Decided November 28, 1973.

Rehearing and Rehearing Denied January 30, 1974.

Lowell C. Kindig and Maurice B. Nieland, Sioux City, Iowa, for defendants-appellants.

Harry H. Smith, Sioux City, Iowa, for plaintiff-appellee.

Michael H. Gottesman, Washington, D. C., amicus.

Before GIBSON and BRIGHT, Circuit Judges, and TALBOT SMITH, Senior District Judge.^*

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied January 30, 1974.

TALBOT SMITH, Senior District Judge.

The issue before us is one of Federal jurisdiction with respect to the continued employment of a non-tenured teacher under Iowa law. Her contract was not renewed by the Board of Education. She comes before us "invoking the jurisdiction of this Court pursuant to Amendments I and XIV of the Constitution of the United States and 42 U.S.C. § 1983,"¹ asserting that her non-renewal "involves an issue of substantive due process."

The facts present a picture of internal and local dissension. On the one hand we have the (then) recently appointed Superintendent of the defendant district, Mr. Devine, and the defendant School Board. On the other we have a discharged teacher (the appellee herein), having had some ten years of school employment, and her supporters. The background of the situation illuminates the issues presented. Superintendent Devine is a relative newcomer to the district, though not to the teaching profession, having been teaching since 1937 and having been Superintendent in various Iowa schools since 1940.

When first interviewed, he testified, he was informed "that the scholastic program at the school had been criticized by the North Central Examining Committee and that they were on the unapproved list of the Iowa Department of Public Instruction and they were criticized by the North Central Association."² Under date of November 18, 1968, the Department of Public Instruction of the State of Iowa notified the school district that "you have one year from the date of Board action to correct the indicated deficiencies or be removed from the list of approved schools."³ Upon Superintendent Devine's assumption of duties he took various remedial steps, unnecessary to record here. With respect to the appellee, Mrs. Scheelhaase, a tentative decision was reached not to renew her contract⁴ and she was so informed, as well as of her statutory rights to a private and public hearing. These were held but, from her point of view, to no avail, for it was the ultimate decision of the Board that her contract not be renewed.⁵ This action followed.

At the trial the appellee contended that she had been discharged solely because of the showing of her students in the tests given them, that such use of the tests "finds no support in educational policy," that, in addition, the appellants had failed to interpret the tests properly, and, moreover, that the tests actually showed her students to be making normal progress. Yet, notwithstanding, her contract had not been renewed. For these reasons, she asserts, the appellants' failure to renew on the ground of allegedly low test scores "violated her Fourteenth Amendment rights."

The appellants, on the other hand, insisted that the tests in fact did reveal low scores for her pupils, that the tests had in fact been properly employed, and that "use of the ITBS scores as a measure of teacher competence stood as a reasonable and valid exercise of administrative discretion." In addition, appellants argue a lack of federal jurisdiction, in that appellee had no constitutionally protected right of renewal, the matter of renewal or nonrenewal of a teacher's contract being entrusted by the applicable state statutes to the discretion of the local Board.

It was the finding of the trial court that a teacher's professional competence could not be determined solely on the basis of her students' achievements on the ITBS (Iowa Test of Basic Skills) and ITED (Iowa Tests of Educational Development), such being the specific reason given for termination,⁶ that appellee had a "property interest" in her contract of employment, and, "that the right to renewal thereof may not be denied without due process of law" which demanded that the reasons for termination "may not be arbitrary and capricious but must have a basis in fact." She was ordered reinstated and granted damages. D.C., 349 F.Supp. 988.

Thus the bare bones of the controversy. We will proceed directly to the basic issue before us, the jurisdiction of the Federal court upon these facts. Under Iowa law teachers do not enjoy tenure. Rather they are hired on a year to year basis. The pertinent statute provides that a teaching contract can extend only through the ensuing year and is subject to review on or before April 15th of each year. The appellee was thus put on notice that her contract, under Iowa Law, could not extend for a longer period than the ensuing school year, but that it would be automatically renewed unless the Board of Education decided to terminate. In such event, the statute provides, she is entitled to a private and a public hearing, both of which were had in this case.⁷ (Discharge for cause at any time during the school year is covered by another statute, Sec. 279.24, 1971 Code of Iowa. The matter before us is a nonrenewal situation, not a discharge for cause.)

The reason for the one-year limitation expressed in the teacher-contract statute was made clear in the case of Miner v. Lovilia Independent School District, 212 Iowa 973, 234 N.W. 817 (1931) wherein the court examined the contract and held as follows:

It will be noted that this section is affirmatively mandatory rather than prohibitive. It requires that the contract whatever it be, shall be in writing. It specifies certain subjects to be covered therein. It imposes no disability upon the contracting parties except that the term of service shall not exceed one year. Subject to this single disability, the right of contract, as between contracting parties, is in no manner abridged.

* * * * * *

It is argued that this statute was enacted for the protection of the teacher. There is quite as much reason for saying that it was enacted primarily for protecting the school district. Prior to the enactment of this particular feature of the statute, there existed in many parts of the state quite a notorious and nefarious practice on the part of outgoing school boards whereby teachers selected by the outgoing board were employed for a term of years and this was done for the purpose of circumventing the incoming school board in their legitimate selection of teachers during the terms of their own incumbency. The single disability contained in this section was effective to stop such practice. In all other respects the contents of the contract are to be determined in writing by the mutual agreement of the contracting parties * * *.

As to Section 279.24, the discharge for cause section, the Court held that:

* * * we find that it provides the method of discharging a teacher for cause. This statute is applicable to every case of teacher\'s employment even though the teacher had not consented thereto in his contract.

These two sections must be read together. Neither of them should be strained or emphasized to the impairment of any provision of the other. Nor should either of them be interpreted as to eliminate any of its own provisions. (234 N.W. at 819.)

The case of Driver v. Independent School District of Sioux City, 224 Iowa 393, 276 N.W. 37 (1937) is also significant in a consideration of the law of Iowa respecting the powers of the Board in the employment of teachers. Here a discharged teacher brought a mandamus action to compel the district to re-employ her as a teacher. With respect to the issue before us the Court held:

The trial court was correct in holding that the matter of employment of teachers lies wholly within the discretionary power vested in the board of directors. This conclusion is borne out of the following authorities: Section 12441, Code, 1935; 38 C.J. pages 689, 691, 695; Neilan v. Board of Directors, 200 Iowa 860, 205 N.W. 506; Drew v. School District, 146 Iowa 721, 125 N.W. 815 * * *. (276 N.W. at 39.)

It is clear from the cases quoted and cited that the function of the Board of Education under the applicable law of Iowa is to further the best interests of that segment of the state's educational system entrusted to its care, Neilan v. Board of Directors of Independent School District of Sioux City, supra, including within such function the employment of teachers, Driver v. Independent School District of Sioux City, supra. In the performance of its duties the Board is empowered to act in accordance with its best discretion. It is possible that the discretion of a Board may, at times, to those more generously endowed, seem to have been exercised with a lack of wisdom. But the Board's decisions in the exercise of its discretion are not vulnerable to our correction merely if they are "wrong", sustainable only if they are "right". As the Iowa court put it in Rehmann v. City of Des Moines, 204 Iowa 798, 215 N.W. 957 (1927):

They may judge wrongly, and so may a court or other tribunal, but the party complaining can have no action when the officers act in good faith and in the line of what they think is honestly their duty. (215 N.W. at 960.)

But the thrust of appellee's argument goes beyond mere error in the exercise of discretion. It is alleged (and was found) to be action so unwarranted in the premises as to be arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of the Board's discretion. And thus it is, against this background of charges, hearings, administrative action, and trial rulings that we reach the question of our jurisdiction in the premises.

The question is not new to us and we need not reexamine in...