a three-year teacher probationary period, and nine states have a four-or five year period. Similarly, California is among only ten states that consider seniority as the sole factor or a required factor when deciding teacher layoffs. While twenty states provide that seniority may be considered among other factors, eighteen states and Washington, D.C. leave the layoff criteria to school district discretion, and two states provide that seniority cannot be considered.
Thus, it is possible that student groups in states with laws similar to California might succeed on similar challenges based on the reasoning of this case. In states with laws that differ considerably from California’s, however, it is less likely that the court’s reasoning would support a challenge to the current law. For example, the recent amendments to Illinois’ teacher tenure, dismissal and layoff laws by Senate Bill 7 and the Performance Evaluation Reform Act (PERA) created numerous distinctions between Illinois’ and California’s laws. Namely, Illinois has a 4-year probationary period for teachers before they can be awarded tenure, and by September 1, 2016, teacher performance will be a factor in all tenure decisions for those teachers first employed by that date. Illinois also requires a teacher’s performance to be considered in a school district’s layoff decisions and has undergone changes to its teacher dismissal process that were intended to make the process more efficient.
In any event, there is no doubt that education leaders from across the country will be paying close attention to the outcome of any appeals filed in this case. And while the legal implications of the case may still be uncertain, this decision sends a powerful message about a growing trend of viewing policy on teacher employment decisions from the perspective of their impact on students.
As a frequent advisor to school districts on freedom of information requests, the question I face most often is how a public body can protect a sensitive document from release. Rarely am I asked what might happen if a public body decides to release a record that could have been protected under a freedom of information law. A recent decision from the Iowa Supreme Court is a reminder of the importance of focusing on that question when choosing to release records that might be subject to an exemption under a records request law.
In Sebring v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, a former Des Moines school district superintendent, Nancy Sebring, sued the school district and a number of its officials, including the former school board president and school attorney for invasion of privacy. The school district and its officials had released certain sexually explicit emails Sebring sent or received on the school district’s email servers in response to a request for records under the Iowa Open Records Law. The request, from the Des Moines Register, had sought emails relating to Sebring’s impending departure from the school district to serve as superintendent in Omaha, Nebraska. The sexually explicit emails were not related to Sebring’s departure for Omaha, but incidentally included the term “Omaha” and so were uncovered in a broad search by the school district’s information technology department. Despite the fact that the emails were not responsive to the request, the school district released them to the newspaper, anyway.
In April, an Iowa trial court ruled that Sebring had sufficiently alleged claims against the school district to move forward with her case. The court noted that when the school district uncovered the emails, officials recognized that the emails could be evidence of misuse of technology by Sebring, and so could have led to discipline for Sebring. In Iowa, documents related to disciplinary matters are exempt from disclosure under the public records law. Accordingly, the court held, the school district should not have produced the records.
The school district appealed the decision to the Iowa appellate court, and the case made its way up to the Iowa Supreme Court. Earlier this mon