This checklist is designed to reduce the prospect that a termination decision will be reversed in a grievance procedure, arbitration, state agency hearing, or court proceeding. The checklist is arranged under the following headings: (1) What is the real reason for considering firing this individual? (distinction between reduction-in-force and…

Questions and answers address: defining financial exigency, how tenure affects termination, selecting faculty for severance, faculty's due process rights, tenured faculty challenges to termination, the institution's responsibility, and the governing board's responsibility in policy formation and implementation. (MSE)

Contains a summary of the events leading to the firing of teacher Cissy Lacks and her successful court battle to win her job back with compensations. Presents Lacks' own reflections on censorship, discrimination, tenure, publicity, legal representation, and constitutional issues. (TB)

Explores whether using a review board to approve the use of a movie infringes on a teacher's right to academic freedom. Also examines, in the absence of such a policy, whether teachers can be disciplined for showing movies that some parents, board members, or administrators regard as inappropriate. (68 footnotes) (MLF)

In a case involving questionable canine search-and-seizure practices, a circuit court upheld a school board's decision to terminate a teacher's contract. While touting zero tolerance, the board fired an honored teacher 3 years from retirement who may not have known about the marijuana cigarette in her car. (MLH)

The legal status of tenure rights threatened by financial exigency and the role of the American Association of University Professors in protecting those rights are considered. Accommodations of competing managerial, employee, and institutional interests that must be addressed are also discussed. Court cases are reviewed that deal with managerial…

The most frequently cited causes for teacher dismissal are immorality, incompetence, and insubordination. The discussion in this chapter concerning these three causes encompasses the general judicial principles found in teacher dismissal cases. The discussion of dismissal for immorality focuses on three controversial areas of litigation: sexual…

Since employee salaries and fringe benefits make up the major part of school budgets, any reduction in budgets must be accomplished by reducing personnel. Concentrating on Oklahoma, but citing legal decisions in other states as well, a legal summary is presented for reduction in force when funds are unavailable to complete a school budget. As in…

Dismissals for ineffective teaching, as distinguished from insubordination, immorality, or improper treatment of students, are rare because standards of teaching against which to juxtapose an individual teacher's behavior have not been available. However, abstract performance standards for teachers are beginning to emerge from research on teaching…

Surveys court decisions and constitutional challenges by homosexual teachers faced with job terminations. Provides nine guidelines for use by school officials. The primary concern of boards assessing a teacher's fitness should be the educational competence of the teacher and the possibility of actual harm to students resulting from the teacher's…

This information brief explains the State of Minnesota statutory provisions that affect the employment rights of K-12 public school teachers in Minnesota. It describes the required probationary period, the conditions of continuing employment for those teachers who successfully complete the probationary period, and the procedures that must be…

This paper addresses the legal issues surrounding a university or college's action of dismissing tenured faculty members because of the school's troubled financial condition or program discontinuance. It explores various legal principles through an examination of specific questions. These questions are: (1) How do the courts define financial…

Political repression of faculty members and the use of an archive of records to help remedy this phenomenon are discussed. The focus is the use of coercion to compel the behavior of politically dissident faculty members, particularly by the use of dismissal. The archive of records would indicate faculty members fired, not hired, or harassed for…

Although the main purpose of a school district's evaluation system is to improve employees' performance, the evaluation procedures and the supporting documentation must also serve as evidence in the termination hearings of an unsatisfactory employee. Accordingly, this chapter provides practical advice to school administrators concerning…

This chapter provides an overview of legislation and litigation relating to reduction in force (RIF) with a focus on cases decided since 1980. State statutes continue to be the primary source of the law concerning RIF, so a table is provided for these statutes and their various provisions. These statutes include the dismissla-type, and the less…