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Just in: ISTA and Jay County teachers win precedent-setting teacher compensation lawsuit
11/16/2015

 

Gavel.pngIn a ruling handed down late Friday, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Jay Classroom Teachers Association on two issues dealing with teacher compensation. The lawsuit was centered on Jay’s collective bargaining agreement. The court held that teachers can bargain to be paid for ancillary duties occurring during regular teaching hours, and that Indiana law prohibits giving discretion to school administrators to set beginning teacher salaries.

 

The court first addressed an issue dealing with a contractual provision that paid a teacher additional wages for covering another teacher's class in situations such as when a teacher has to leave school unexpectedly and another teacher gives up her prep period to cover the class. The Indiana Education Employment Relations Board (IEERB) and the trial court said this violated the law because a teacher was getting double paid. However, the Court of Appeals disagreed.

 

The court’s decision held that under its previous Nettle Creek decision there was "still an open question whether ancillary duties can occur during the normal, contracted teachers' workday, or whether anything that occurs during the normal, contracted workday is, by definition, considered part of normal teaching duties."

 

IEERB urged the Court to adopt a bright line rule that teachers may not bargain compensation, outside of salary, for any assignments during the normal work day." The Court of Appeals held, "We disagree with the Board, and we reject the adoption of a bright-line, one-size-fits-all rule for each school corporation; instead, we find that the question of ancillary duties can be determined at the local level." 

 

As a result, the Court ruled that the proposed provision paying teachers to cover another teacher's class was permissible.

 

The second issue dealt with a provision in the contract that gave the superintendent discretion to set the starting salary of a teacher hired after the start of the school year. The Court held, "We find that this provision unambiguously, impermissibly conflicts with the Association's statutory right to collectively bargain to establish salaries under Section 20-29-4-1 and thus violates Section 20-29-6-2(a)(2)."

 

The Court further held, "The Board argues that the 2011 amendments - the shift in how salaries are established and the change in the rights and responsibilities of both the school employees and employers - gave the School and the Superintendent greater powers and more flexibility."  To this, the Court of Appeals responded, "The Board's argument, however, ignores Section 20-29-4-1(2), which confers on school employees the right to "participate in collective bargaining with school employers through representatives of their own choosing . . . to establish, maintain, or improve salaries . . . " - a right that cannot be ignored in light of Section 20-29-6-2(a)(2), which prohibits contracts containing provisions that conflict with statutorily conferred school-employee rights."

 

Based on this decision, any collective bargaining agreement that gives school corporations discretion to set starting salaries violates Indiana law.