Texas teachers fight state rule over charter school staffing authority

The case centers around a state law allowing school districts to sign over control of underperforming schools to a charter operator to avoid a state takeover of the district.(CN) — A Texas teachers union asked the state’s high court Wednesday to uphold a block on a Texas Education Agency rule giving charter operators “final authority” over staffing assignments at schools they control.Texas law gives the state the power to take over school districts with underperforming campuses. In order to avoid a state takeover, a school district has the option of signing over control of such campuses to a charter operator.The Texas State Teachers Association challenged a rule adopted by Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath giving those charter operators the final say over the assignment of teachers and other staff to those campuses. In 2023, a Travis County judge declared the rule invalid, and the Texas Third Court of Appeals upheld that decision last year.The union argues the rule contravenes state law giving superintendents control over assignments and also violates teachers’ statutory right to file grievances challenging assignment decisions they are unhappy with.Attorney Giana Ortiz, representing the union, gave the hypothetical of a teacher who files a grievance because a charter operator pulls her from the school she was previously at to have her work as a teacher’s aide at their campus.“If she files that grievance saying my contract says I work as a teacher, not an aide, then she’s stuck because she can file a grievance to the school district, but what can they do?” Ortiz told the Texas Supreme Court. “Their hands are tied by the rule.”But Texas Deputy Solicitor General Benjamin Wallace Mendelson argued the rule doesn’t prevent teachers from filing grievances and that teachers don’t have a statutory right to a particular assignment.He also argued the rule doesn’t conflict with statutes governing the authority of superintendents.“The rule is merely a condition in a contract,” Mendelson said. “If the school board chooses to sign the contract, it must direct its subordinate officials to approve all the campus assignments that the operating partner desires. But if the school board or its subordinates are unwilling or unable to do so, they can just choose not to enter into the contract.”“But it’s not really a choice, right? They’ve kind of got a gun to their head, don’t they?” Justice Kyle Hawkins asked, pointing out that the alternatives to entering into a charter contract are closing the school or facing a state takeover of the district.“Well that, of course, is the choice that the Legislature made,” Mendelson responded.Mendelson argued giving charter operators control over staff assignments is necessary for their management of the school.“The single biggest thing with any business is, ‘Who are the people that are going to do the work?’” he said.Justice Brett Busby asked if the rule means “the operating partner can look over all the other schools in the district and pull out who it wants to teach at that school.”“For purposes of initial assignment, yeah, I think so,” Mendelson said.“So you could take the award-winning science teacher at the top-performing school in the district and say, ‘Sir, we know you’ve taught there 25 years, but guess what? You’re going to move to this other campus 20 miles away and teach sixth grade science’?” Justice Jane Bland asked.Mendelson said the charter operator could do that for initial assignments, but the superintendent would have the ability to reassign the teacher, although the superintendent would be disincentivized from repeatedly doing so because it could lead to the charter operating declining to renew their contract.“As a matter of reality, a superintendent is probably going to have a lot of incentive to cooperate because they don’t want the charter school to say, ‘We’re not renewing this contract. We’re no longer interested,’ because that starts leading to state intervention,” Mendelson said.The Texas law permitting state takeover of school districts has generated extensive controversy, which intensified with the 2023 takeover of Houston ISD, among the largest school districts in the nation. The district had fought a yearslong court battle attempting to block the takeover before finally conceding.Since then, there have been protests by students and parents objecting to changes made by the state-installed superintendent.Critics have complained that the Texas Education Agency removed local control from a majority-minority school district and claim Houston was targeted because it leans Democratic, in contrast to the Republican-led state government.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads