Day v. School District No. 21

Schools and School Districts ? Teachers ? Tenure Act ? Dismissal of Teacher Without Legal Notice ? Notice must be by Board not by Individual Members Thereof ? Action to Recover Salary. Schools and School Districts ? Teachers ? Informal Contract of Employment ? Ratification by School Trustees Cures Defect. 1. Where a teacher had taught school in the same district for three consecutive years (1929-1931) under an informal contract, although the statute provides that such contracts shall be in writing, the - Page 208 board of trustees, by accepting the benefits of the teachers services and in issuing warrants to her in payment thereof, will be held to have ratified the contract; ratification thereof was equivalent to a full compliance with the necessary formalities, and the contract thereupon must be considered as valid from its inception. Same ? Teachers ? Tenure Act ? Dismissal of Teacher ? Written Notice Required by Act. 2. A teacher who has taught school for three consecutive years and who possesses the other requisite qualifications prescribed by law, will be deemed re-elected from year to year thereafter and is entitled to the benefits flowing from the Tenure Act (sec. 1075, Rev. Codes 1921, as amended by Chap. 87, Laws of 1927), under which the board of trustees must, before May 1, by a majority vote, give the teacher written notice of her dismissal. Same ? Tenure Act ? Notice of Dismissal of Teacher must be by School Board, not Individual Members of Board. 3. The notice of dismissal which must be given a teacher entitled to the benefits of the Tenure Act, is one based upon action by a majority of the board of trustees taken at a meeting thereof; hence, where two of the three members of the board decided in casual conversations had at their homes to dispense with the services of the teacher and notified her to that effect in writing, the notice was not the legal notice required and was insufficient to effect her dismissal. Same ? Tenure Act ? Illegal Notice of Dismissal of Teacher ? When Illegality not Cured by Subsequent Ratification. 4. In an action by a teacher entitled to the protection of the Tenure Act, to whom legal notice of her dismissal, required by law to be given before May 1, had not been given but who was displaced by another after her third year of service, to recover the salary she would have received if she had been permitted to teach the fourth year, the fact that the board at a special meeting on July 15 ratified the action of the two of its members in giving the illegal notice referred to in paragraph 3, above, did not cure the illegality of the one given.