observing that the General Assembly intended to grant broad powers to community college district boards to meet contingencies such as the need to reduce staff because of falling enrollments
How later courts described this case
- observing that the General Assembly intended to grant broad powers to community college district boards to meet contingencies such as the need to reduce staff because of falling enrollments
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE GEORGE J. MORAN, dissenting:
I disagree with that portion of the majority opinion which holds that Steinmetz was not entitled to District tenure. Steinmetz was a tenured teacher entitled to District tenure by reason of a resolution of the Junior College Board adopted January 16, 1968. On July 15, 1975, the Board adopted a new policy entitled “Campus Tenure.” The plaintiff argues that having once acquired District tenure, he could not be deprived of his tenure retroactively by the adoption of a new policy which would entitle him to campus tenure only. If the new resolution changed his tenure, it stripped him of a vested contract right which the Community College Board had no power to do.
However, I do not think that the policy adopted on July 15,1975, was intended to strip him of his vested tenure rights because I believe that policy was intended to operate only prospectively and was not intended to deprive anyone of District tenure who had acquired that right prior to July 15,1975. Note that the third paragraph of the policy adopted July 15, 1975, commences thusly:
“Faculty members earning tenure status herein will enjoy said tenure status with the campus at which the tenure was gained, not with the district.”
This seems to me to be a recognition of the fact that faculty members who had already attained tenure status would not be affected by the new policy.
I also believe that there are disputed issues of fact in this case which should preclude an entry of a summary judgment for the defendant.