Weiss v. Bd. of Educ. of the Santa Fe Pub. Sch.
| Decision Date | 03 June 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. 34,797.,32,844.,34,797. |
| Citation | 336 P.3d 388 |
| Parties | Rosa WEISS and National Education Association—New Mexico, Plaintiffs–Appellees, v. The BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the SANTA FE PUBLIC SCHOOLS, Joel Boyd, in his official capacity as local superintendent of the Santa Fe Public Schools, Defendants–Appellants. |
| Court | Court of Appeals of New Mexico |
Jones, Snead, Wertheim & Clifford, P.A., Jerry Todd Wertheim, Roxie Rawls–De Santiago, Samuel C. Wolf, Santa Fe, NM, for Appellees.
German & Associates, LLC, K. Lee Peifer, Elizabeth L. German, Albuquerque, NM, for Appellants.
Cuddy & McCarthy, LLP, John F. Kennedy, Santa Fe, NM, for Amicus Curiae.
{1} New Mexico law provides heightened substantive and procedural rights to teachers who have been employed with a school district for three consecutive years if the school board elects not to renew the teacher's contract for a subsequent year. This case presents the question of whether those protections apply when notice of a board's intent not to renew a teacher's contract is served on the teacher during, but prior to the completion of, her third year. We conclude that they do and therefore affirm the district court's declaratory judgment in favor of Plaintiffs.
{2} Plaintiff Rosa Weiss was a teacher employed by the Santa Fe Public Schools during the 2008–09, 2009–10, and 2010–11 school years, pursuant to three one-year contracts. On May 12, 2011, approximately two weeks before the end of her third year, Weiss was served notice that Defendant Board of Education of the Santa Fe Public Schools intended not to renew her contract for a fourth year. Weiss requested a hearing on the decision, but her request was denied.
{3} Weiss and Plaintiff National Education Association–New Mexico then filed suit in district court against the Board of Education and the Superintendent of the Santa Fe Public Schools, seeking a declaratory judgment that Defendants were required by New Mexico law to provide Weiss with a hearing to contest her termination. The district court ruled that Weiss was employed for three consecutive years as a certified school instructor and that, therefore, she was entitled to such a hearing. Defendants appeal.
{4} Defendants argue that the district court's ruling was based on a misinterpretation of a provision of the School Personnel Act (the Act) governing termination procedures. This Court reviews the district court's interpretation of a statute de novo. See Bishop v. Evangelical Good Samaritan Soc'y, 2009–NMSC–036, ¶ 8, 146 N.M. 473, 212 P.3d 361 (). When construing a statute, “the essence of judicial responsibility [is] to search for and effectuate the legislative intent[.]” Id. ¶ 10 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Any such analysis will begin with an examination of the statutory language, “as the text of the statute is the primary indicator of legislative intent.” Id. ¶ 11. However, an appellate court must also “consider the statutory subsection in reference to the statute as a whole and read the several sections together so that all parts are given effect.” Id. Finally, we must “consider the practical implications and the legislative purpose of a statute, and when the literal meaning of a statute would be absurd, unreasonable, or otherwise inappropriate in application, we [will] go beyond the mere text[.]” Id. We now apply these principles of statutory construction to the issue before us.
{5} If a school board wishes to put an end to a person's employment, the Act mandates different substantive and procedural protections depending on such factors as the person's position, how long the person has been employed, and the time at which the board proposes that the person's employment will end. See NMSA 1978, §§ 22–10A–24 and –27 (2003). Teachers are “certified school employees” under the Act, NMSA 1978, § 22–1–2(G), (BB) (2010), and therefore receive the protections set forth for those employees. Certified school employees are hired pursuant to contracts that generally specify a term of one school year, except that after three years of consecutive employment, a school board may choose to employ a certified school employee for a contractual term of up to three years. NMSA 1978, § 22–10A–21(B)(5) (2003). When a school board seeks to end a certified school employee's employment, the procedures required depend on whether the board seeks to end the employee's employment in the middle of a school year or whether the board simply intends not to renew the employee's contract for the following year. The Act therefore distinguishes between “discharging” a certified school employee, which is defined as “severing the employment relationship with a certified school employee prior to the expiration of the current employment contract” and “terminating” a certified school employee, which is defined as “the act of not reemploying [a certified school] employee for the ensuing school year.” See NMSA 1978, § 22–10A–2(A), (E) (2007).
{6} Section 22–10A–24 of the Act governs the procedures and standards for termination. That section sets out two different ways to terminate an employee depending on whether or not the employee has worked for the school board for at least three consecutive years. First, for an employee with fewer than three consecutive years of service, the statute provides for termination for any reason and with minimal process. It states:
A. A local school board ... may terminate an employee with fewer than three years of consecutive service for any reason it deems sufficient. Upon request of the employee, the superintendent or administrator shall provide written reasons for the decision to terminate.... The reasons shall not provide a basis for contesting the decision under the School Personnel Act.
Section 22–10A–24(A). Second, for an employee with at least three consecutive years of employment, Section 22–10A–24 provides that termination must be based upon just cause and provides the employee with an opportunity to be heard. It states:
Section 22–10A–24(C)–(F). An employee who is aggrieved by the board's decision after such a hearing may appeal pursuant to NMSA 1978, Section 22–10A–25 (2003).
{7} Approximately two weeks before Weiss completed her contract for her third year of teaching, she received notice that the school board intended to terminate her—in other words, that she would finish out her third school year but would not be rehired for a fourth. Because Weiss received the notice of termination at the end of her third year of teaching, the single question at issue is whether she was entitled to the protections in Section 22–10A–24 for employees who have been employed for at least three consecutive years, despite the fact that she had not actually completed all three years at the time that she received notice.
{8} The answer to that question depends on whether the “three consecutive years” referred to in Section 22–10A–24(C) is measured at the time that the employee receives notice of termination or the date that the employee completes her last day of work under the contract. When read in isolation, the most intuitive construction of the phrase in Section 22–10A–24(C) providing protections for an employee “who has been employed by a school district ... for three consecutive years and who receives a notice of termination,” is that the time is calculated from the time the employee receives notice. But to construe the statute in this manner with respect to certified school employees would disregard the Legislature's distinct definition of “terminate” when it comes to those employees. Because termination of a certified school employee refers to “the act of not reemploying [the] employee for the ensuing school year,” § 22–10A–2(E), termination of a certified school employee's employment can only occur at the end of a school year. Although the employee will receive a notice of termination prior to the end of the year, see NMSA 1978, § 22–10A–22 (2003) (); 6.67.2.8(A)(2) NMAC (), she will nevertheless complete the full year of employment. Therefore, in the absence of other intervening...
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...both appeals. We review questions of statutory construction de novo. See Weiss v. Bd. of Educ. of Santa Fe Pub. Sch., 2014-NMCA-100, ¶ 4, 336 P.3d 388. Our mandated task in construing a statute is to "search for and effectuate" the intent of the Legislature. Id. (internal quotation marks an......