Ruling Limits School Boards’ Discipline : High Court Says Panel Had Discretion to Overturn Principal’s Firing

SAN FRANCISCO — In a ruling that limits the disciplinary powers of school boards, the state Supreme Court held Thursday that a principal could not be fired for falsely reporting in sick so she could go watch a space shuttle landing.

The court held unanimously that local professional competence commissions--special panels that hear appeals from disciplined teachers and administrators--have the discretion to decide whether the penalty sought by a school board should be upheld.

“Nothing (in the law) indicates that the commission must be bound by the district’s choice to the extent that it is required to approve an employee’s dismissal if it is not persuaded, in the exercise of its discretion, that an offense is serious enough to warrant that step,” Justice John A. Arguelles wrote for the court.

The justices rejected a bid by the Fontana Unified School District to dismiss elementary school Principal Nancy Burman, who was accused of lying to officials after she skipped school to attend the landing of the space shuttle Columbia at Edwards Air Force Base in December, 1983.

According to testimony in the case, Burman arranged for another person to call the school and report that she was ill. She then had dinner with the principal of another school the night before the craft was scheduled to land.

Went to Nightclub

During the course of a long evening, Burman invited two school custodians to join the two women at a nightclub, where they consumed alcoholic beverages and remained for several hours.

The group then set off to see the shuttle land at 5 a.m.. However, the craft was delayed by computer problems and the group returned without seeing the landing. Burman, confronted by the district superintendent and other officials, first lied about her whereabouts but later confessed that she had not been ill.

The local school board voted to discharge the principal, and she was suspended while the district brought charges against her for immoral conduct, dishonesty, evident unfitness for service and refusal to obey regulations.

Burman sought a hearing before an ad hoc professional competence commission composed of an administrative law judge and two teachers--one picked by the district, one by the accused teacher--who are not employed in the district. The commission found her guilty only of dishonesty and declined to approve her dismissal.

A San Bernardino Superior Court judge upheld the commission’s action but a state Court of Appeal ruled that under state education statutes, the commission had no alternative but to uphold the board’s bid for dismissal once the commission upheld the charge against Burman.

Attorneys for Burman, supported by the California Teachers Assn., contended that giving such authority to school boards would destroy needed protection against “arbitrary and capricious” board disciplinary actions.

In their ruling Thursday, the justices concluded that the intent of the Legislature in enacting teacher disciplinary laws was to give local commissions the discretion to reject an impending punishment, as well as a charge.

The law, Arguelles wrote, “provides that a teacher cannot be dismissed unless certain grounds are found to exist; it does not provide that a teacher must be dismissed if one of those grounds is found.”

Such an interpretation of the law “works no great infringement on the ability of school districts to govern their affairs and control the conduct of their permanent employees,” Arguelles said.

The commission’s inability to impose some discipline on Burman--”who plainly merited some measure of punishment”--resulted from the board’s “all or nothing” attempt to fire her, the court said.

To make sure that a teacher or administrator guilty of misconduct receives some punishment, school boards may also seek lesser penalties--such as suspension--while, or after, they seek dismissal, the court said.

Michael E. Hersher, staff counsel for the state Department of Education, which supported the board in the case, said Thursday’s decision would lessen elected school officials’ power to “reflect community values and what makes a teacher fit to teach.”

Burman, who was returned to a teaching position pending the outcome of her appeal, has since resigned from the district, according to an attorney in the case.