[Download] "Unified School District No. 480 v. Epperson" by Tenth Circuit. United States Court of Appeals # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Unified School District No. 480 v. Epperson
- Author : Tenth Circuit. United States Court of Appeals
- Release Date : January 31, 1978
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 66 KB
Description
This is a dispute between Unified School District No. 480, in Seward County, Kansas, and two of its former teachers, Oleta Peters and Lila Epperson. Peters and Epperson had been teaching 11 and 17 years respectively in District No. 480 when they, along with others, were notified by the District on February 9, 1972, that their teaching contracts would not be renewed for the ensuing school year of 1972-73. Peters and Epperson were each under one-year teaching contracts, which, under Kansas law, would automatically continue to the following school year unless written notice of an intention to terminate the contract was furnished by March 15. Kan.Stat. § 72-5411. The reason given by the District for not renewing the teaching contracts of both Peters and Epperson, along with others, was budgetary cuts, necessitated by a decrease in school enrollments with a corresponding decrease in state aid. Peters and Epperson were president and president-elect, respectively, of the local branch of the National Education Association, and at about this time there had been some rather heated bargaining negotiations between the local NEA and the school board. Peters and Epperson were of the firm view that the refusal of the school board to renew their teaching contracts was not really caused by budgetary problems, but on the contrary was in retaliation for the exercise by them of their First Amendment right to free speech in connection with their NEA activities. In any event, Peters and Epperson retained counsel, and asked the board for a hearing. The board, on advice of its counsel, refused this request for a hearing, believing that a teacher was not entitled to a hearing upon the refusal to renew a one-year teaching contract because of budgetary problems. We note that these events transpired prior to Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S. Ct. 2694, 33 L. Ed. 2d 570 (1972).