Salary Schedule Placement of Certificated Employees

George v. Susanville Elementary School District – California Court of Appeal, Third District (Case No. C098772)

MEMBER(S) INVOLVED: Susanville Elementary School District

IMPORTANCE OF STATEWIDE ISSUE:

This case implicates two statewide issues: 1) The ability of local educational agencies (LEAs) to bargain the type and level of experience for which they will give years of service credit on the salary schedule under Education Code section 45028; and 2) The obligation of LEAs to provide years of service credit on the salary schedule for teachers who resign as permanent employees and are rehired and are entitled to the rights under Education Code section 44931. This matter is also important because of the plaintiff’s erroneous interpretation of a long-standing California Supreme Court Case, Palos Verdes Faculty Association v. Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District (1978) 21 Cal.3d 650, 661. If the plaintiff’s interpretation of Palos Verdes were to prevail, it would limit the ability of LEAs to provide for experience credit for new teachers while not being required to provide such credit for teachers who resign and return under section 44931. More broadly, any tightening of the requirement for “uniformity” in salary schedules will negatively impact districts’ ability to creatively negotiate local salary schedule placement to remain competitive while also ensuring fiscal responsibility.

SUMMARY OF THE CASE:

Susanville ESD employed the plaintiff, Susan George, as a certificated employee from the 2012–13 through the 2018–19 school years. George voluntarily resigned at the end of the 2018–19 school year. At the time of her resignation, George was placed at Class 4, Step 12 of the salary schedule. The district rehired George for the 2022–23 school year after she served two years in another district. The district placed her at Class 4, Step 13 of the salary schedule, giving her credit for her service in the district in 2018–19 but not taking into account her years of service outside of the district. George filed a writ, alleging that she was entitled to be placed at Step 15 based on her years of experience with the other district.

The district’s collective bargaining agreement with its certificated employees provides that, “[f]or purposes of advancement on the salary schedule, a unit member must teach one year to advance one step on the salary schedule.” The district has interpreted the language to apply only to service as a “unit member” of the district’s teacher’s union because it refers to “a unit member” in the language regarding how to advance on the salary schedule.

The district provides new teachers with up to 12 years of credit for teaching outside of the district upon initial hire but does not apply that rule to teachers who have resigned as permanent employees and then been rehired. Thus, according to the plaintiff’s opening brief, by failing to provide her credit for teaching outside of the district, the district violated the requirement of uniformity in salary schedules in Education Code section 45028. The plaintiff argued that legislative intent demonstrates that section 45028 requires complete uniformity, rather than allowing for differences in credit for experience between new teachers and existing teachers. The plaintiff cites to Palos Verdes for this proposition, arguing that the court in that case held that legislative amendments to section 45028 were intended to overturn an earlier case that had allowed for different salary schedule movement for new teachers and existing teachers, Lawe v. El Monte School District (1968) 267 Cal.App.2d 20. The plaintiff quoted Palos Verdes for the proposition that, “One effect of this action was to eliminate the possibility of future results of the type exemplified by Lawe, by which a district, while granting a given maximum of credit for outside experience, makes such credit available on less than a uniform basis to all teachers.” Id at 661.

While the district has not yet filed its opening brief, in its response to the writ, the district argued that the outside experience rule in the CBA in Article 8.2 did not apply to the plaintiff because she was rehired within 39 months of her resignation and, pursuant to section 44931, she was restored to all of her rights as a permanent employee of the district. Put another way, she was not treated as a “new” employee for purposes of placement on the salary schedule. The district further argued that the plaintiff misinterpreted the Palos Verdes decision. Specifically, before Palos Verdes, section 45028 did not require uniformity at all and, thus, the legislative changes were not specific to the issue in this matter. Rather, the district has uniformly applied to all teachers within the district, i.e., it has provided the same experience credit to all teachers by applying the CBA provisions uniformly. The district further argued that Palos Verdes did not hold that all school districts are required to give the same experience credit for all teaching outside the district, citing to footnote 6, which provides, in part, “By the same token, we do not read the new statute to preclude a district from making reasonable determinations as to the level and quality of ‘training’ or ‘experience’ which is to qualify for a particular level of credit within its boundaries. Once a district has made such determinations, however, the new statute requires that the resultant standards be applied uniformly to all teachers in the district.”

The plaintiff has also argued that she was entitled to 15 years of service credit on the salary schedule under Education Code section 44931. That statute provides that teachers who leave their employment as permanent teachers and are rehired within 39 months are entitled to be reinstated with “all of the rights” of other permanent teachers “disregarding the break in service.” Thus, the plaintiff argued that she was entitled to credit on the salary schedule for the two years she served outside the district because if she had remained employed with the district she would have earned those two years on the salary schedule. The district argued that it did reinstate her with her rights because it gave her credit for her last year of employment with the district prior to her resignation and placed her at step 13 of the salary schedule.

The trial court denied the plaintiff’s petition, in a short decision without much detail. The trial court’s statement of the issue was “whether respondent school district is required to grant experience credit for petitioner’s two years of teaching outside the district following her resignation and rehire” and found no factual dispute between the parties. The court adopted the district’s interpretation of the CBA, finding that the plaintiff needed to be a “unit member” to advance on the salary schedule due to years of experience. Since she was not a unit member during the two years in question, she did not qualify for advancement on the salary schedule. The court also found that section 45208 did not afford the plaintiff relief but did not provide any analysis of that finding. Finally, the court found that the district complied with section 44931 by restoring the plaintiff to her previous rights that existed at the time of her resignation.

CURRENT STATUS AND/OR OUTCOME:

The ELA is currently preparing its amicus brief, which will likely be filed in November 2023.

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