Farmer v. Kelleys Island Bd. of Edn. - Ohio Supreme Court Opinion - Ohio Supreme Court Decision

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Farmer, Appellee, v. Kelleys Island Board of Education,
Appellant.
[Cite as Farmer v. Kelleys Island Bd. of Edn. (1994), Ohio
St. 3d .]
Schools -- Teachers -- R.C. 3319.11(G)(7) provides an
exhaustive list of grounds upon which a court orders a
teacher to be reemployed -- R.C. 3319.111(B) defines
evaluation procedures required under former R.C.
3319.111(A) -- Requirements for proper evaluation --
Failure of board of education to comply with observation
requirements of R.C. 3319.111(B)(2) constitutes a failure
to comply with evaluation requirements of R.C. 3319.111(A)
-- Back pay of teacher whose contract was not properly
nonrenewed begins to accumulate, when.
1. R.C. 3319.11(G)(7) provides an exhaustive list of those
grounds upon which a court orders a teacher to be
reemployed.
2. R.C. 3319.111(B) defines the evaluation procedures
required under former R.C. 3319.111(A). A proper
evaluation under former R.C. 3319.111(A) contains all
the elements delineated in R.C. 3319.111(B), including
the observation requirements listed in R.C.
3319.111(B)(2).
3. The failure of a board of education to comply with the
observation requirements of R.C. 3319.111(B)(2)
constitutes a failure to comply with the evaluation
requirements of 3319.111(A). Such a failure
constitutes a ground upon which a court reverses a
board of education's decision not to reemploy the
teacher according to R.C. 3319.11(G)(7).
4. If a court determines that a board of education has failed
to comply with the evaluation procedures required by
former R.C. 3319.111(A), the teacher whose contract
was not properly nonrenewed is entitled to back pay.
This back pay begins to accumulate when the board
improperly chose not to renew the teacher's contract.
(No. 93-441 -- Submitted November 9, 1993 -- Decided April
27, 1994.)

Certified by from the Court of Appeals for Erie County,
No. E-92-1.
During the 1990-1991 school year, Donna Farmer was
employed under a one-year limited teaching contract with the
Kelleys Island Board of Education ("the board").
Charles Hoffman, Director of Instruction for the Erie
County Board of Education and Kelleys Island Board of Education
representative, conducted an evaluation of Farmer. Hoffman
observed Farmer on four occasions during the 1990-1991 school
year: October 10, January 22, March 12 and March 22. Four
written evaluations were prepared and provided to Farmer -- one
for each occasion that Hoffman observed her. Additionally, a
summary report was provided to Farmer on April 10, 1991.
On the same day, Erie County school superintendent,
Richard Acierto, recommended that Farmer's contract be renewed.
On April 15, 1991, Farmer was informed by the board that
it would not renew her contract for the 1991-1992 school year.
Following a hearing on June 7, 1991, the board informed Farmer
that it had reaffirmed its decision to not renew her contract.
The Court of Common Pleas of Erie County reversed the
board's decision by holding that Farmer had been improperly
terminated. The court ordered that Farmer be reinstated and be
awarded back pay.
The court of appeals affirmed the common pleas court's
decision, and on the basis of a conflict between its own
decision and two decisions announced by the Court of Appeals
for Geauga County: Botker v. W. Geauga Local School Dist. Bd.
of Edn. (1992), 79 Ohio App.3d 428, 607 N.E.2d 529, and Naylor
v. Cardinal Local School Dist Bd. of Edn. (1992), Case No.
91-G-1629, unreported, certified the record of the case to this
court for review and final determination.

Kalniz, Iorio & Feldstein, Ted Iorio and Ronald L. Rahal,
for appellee.
Means, Bichimer, Burkholder & Baker Co., L.P.A., and
Kimball H. Carey; and Terry R. Griffith, Erie County
Prosecuting Attorney, for appellant.
Richard J. Dickinson, urging reversal for amicus curiae,
Ohio School Boards Association.

Pfeifer, J. This case addresses the procedures to be
followed, under R.C. 3319.11 and 3319.111, before a board of
education can decide not to renew the limited contract between
itself and a teacher.
I
Farmer contends that when Superintendent Acierto
recommended that her contract be renewed, the board had no
authority to decline to renew the contract. We disagree.
In support of her contentions, Farmer cites R.C
3319.11(E), which provides:
"Any teacher employed under a limited contract and not
eligible to be considered for a continuing contract, is, at the
expiration of such limited contract, considered reemployed
under the provisions of this division at the same salary plus
any increment provided by the salary schedule unless evaluation
procedures have been complied with *** and the employing board,

acting upon the superintendent's written recommendation that
the teacher not be reemployed, gives such teacher written
notice of its intention not to reemploy him on or before the
thirtieth day of April."
Farmer contends that the phrase "acting upon the
superintendent's written recommendation that the teacher not be
reemployed" precludes the board from terminating a teacher when
a superintendent recommends that a teacher be reemployed.
Farmer asks us to interpret R.C. 3319.11(E) as a
legislative attempt to overturn the long-standing rule of this
court that "[t]he ultimate responsibility for employing
teachers rests upon the board of education under R.C. 3319.07
and 3319.11." Justus v. Brown (1975), 42 Ohio St.2d 53, 71
O.O.2d 35, 325 N.E.2d 884, paragraph one of syllabus. If this
were the intent of the General Assembly, it would have
expressly said so. Accordingly, we reject Farmer's contention
that the superintendent's recommendation to renew Farmer's
contract vetoed the board's unanimous decision not to renew the
contract.
II
Farmer also contends that we should order the board to
reemploy her because the board did not follow the proper
evaluation procedures required by R.C. 3319.111.
R.C. 3319.11(G)(7) limits the scope of appeal available to
teachers whose contracts have not been renewed by boards of
education. The statute provides, in relevant part:
"[T]he court in an appeal under this division is limited
to the determination of procedural errors and to ordering the
correction of procedural errors and shall have no jurisdiction
to order a board to reemploy a teacher, except that the court
may order a board to reemploy a teacher in compliance with the
requirements of division *** (E) of this section when the court
determines that evaluation procedures have not been complied
with pursuant to division (A) of section 3319.111 of the
Revised Code ***."
Former R.C. 3319.111(A) mandates that teachers employed by
limited contracts be evaluated. The statute, at the time
relevant to this case, required that "[t]his evaluation shall
be conducted at least twice in the school year in which the
board may wish to declare its intention not to re-employ the
teacher. One evaluation shall be conducted and completed not
later than the first day of February and the teacher being
evaluated shall receive a written report to the results of this
evaluation not later than the tenth day of February. One
evaluation shall be conducted and completed between the first
day of March and the first day of April and the teacher being
evaluated shall receive a written report of the results of this
evaluation not later than the tenth day of April."
R.C. 3319.111(B) defines the term "evaluation" used in
former R.C. 3319.111(A). R.C. 3319.111(B) outlines specific
procedures that boards of education must follow when evaluating
teachers whose contracts the board ultimately decides not to
renew. The statute provides:
"Any board of education evaluating a teacher pursuant to
this section shall adopt evaluation procedures that shall be
applied each time a teacher is evaluated pursuant to this
section. These evaluations shall include, but not be limited

to:
"(1) Criteria of expected job performance in the areas of
responsibility assigned to the teacher being evaluated;
"(2) Observation of the teacher being evaluated by the
person conducting the evaluation on at least two occasions for
not less than thirty minutes on each occasion;
"(3) A written report of the results of the evaluation
that includes specific recommendations regarding any
improvements needed in the performance of the teacher being
evaluated and regarding the means by which the teacher may
obtain assistance in making such improvements." (Emphasis
added.)
R.C. 3319.111(B) requires that two observations be made
for each of the two evaluations required under R.C.
3319.111(A). The statute, therefore, requires a two-to-one
ratio of observations to written evaluations.
Thus, using the time line delineated in R.C. 3319.111(A),
the board needed to complete one evaluation of Farmer before
February 1, 1991. Two observations should have also been
performed for each evaluation occurring before this date. The
record indicates that, by that date, the board had conducted
only one observation for each of the two evaluations it had
completed. Thus, the board failed to fulfill the statutorily
mandated two-to-one ratio of observations to written
evaluations.
The board contends that it is improper for a court to
reverse the board's decision not to reemploy Farmer due to its
failure to follow the observation requirements listed in
3319.111(B). The board notes that the observation requirements
appear in subsection (B) of R.C. 3319.111, but that R.C.
3319.11(G)(7) limits the grounds of appeal available to a
teacher whose contract has not been renewed to when "evaluation
procedures have not been complied with pursuant to division (A)
of section 3319.111." We disagree.
R.C. 3319.111(B) defines the evaluation procedures
required under former R.C. 3319.111(A). A proper evaluation
under former R.C. 3319.111(A) contains all the elements
delineated in R.C. 3319.111(B), including the observation
requirements listed in 3319.111(B)(2).
The failure of the board to comply with the observation
requirements of R.C. 3319.111(B)(2) constitutes a failure to
comply with the evaluation requirements of former 3319.111(A).
Such a failure constitutes a ground upon which a court reverses
the board's decision not to reemploy Farmer under to R.C.
3319.11(G)(7).
III
Finally, we address the relief Farmer is entitled to
receive because of our finding that the trial court correctly
ordered that she be reemployed as the result of the improper
nonrenewal of her contract. Farmer claims that she is entitled
to back pay. We agree.
R.C. 3319.11(G)(7) provides that when a board of education
improperly terminates a teacher by not complying with the
evaluation procedures required by former R.C. 3319.111(A), a
court should order the board to reemploy the teacher. The
statute does not state the effective date of this
reemployment. We hold that if a court determines that a board

of education has failed to comply with the evaluation
procedures required by R.C. 3319.111(A), the teacher whose
contract was not properly nonrenewed is entitled to back pay.
This back pay begins to accumulate when the board improperly
chose not to renew the teacher's contract.
We award back pay because to hold to the contrary would
produce an absurd result. A board could improperly terminate
its employee, tie up the employee's case in the courts for
years, and, consequently, realize significant savings for the
salaries that it did not have to pay her during the pendency of
the litigation. By awarding back pay, we eliminate any
incentive for the dilatory conduct of the school board. We
affirm the judgment of the court of appeals and remand the
cause to the trial court to determine the amount of Farmer's
damages.
Judgment affirmed
and cause remanded.
A.W. Sweeney, Douglas and F.E. Sweeney, JJ., concur.
Moyer, C.J., Wright and Deshler, JJ., dissent.
Dana A. Deshler, Jr., J., of the Tenth Appellate District,
sitting for Resnick, J.
Moyer, C.J., dissenting. " [A]n unambiguous statute
means what it says." Hakim v. Kosydar (1977), 49 Ohio St.2d
161, 164, 3 O.O.3d 211, 213, 359 N.E.2d 1371, 1373 (citing
Chope v. Collins [1976], 48 Ohio St.2d 297, 300, 2 O.O.3d 442,
444, 358 N.E.2d 573, 575, fn. 2). This maxim leads me to
conclude that R.C. 3319.11(G)(7) permits the reinstatement of a
limited contract teacher only when a court finds a violation of
R.C. 3319.111(A). Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
R.C. 3319.11 and 3319.111 are remedial in nature and
entitled to a liberal interpretation. Nevertheless, even the
liberal interpretation of a statute does not justify a court in
reading into it a result that the language does not reasonably
imply. Szekely v. Young (1963), 174 Ohio St. 213, 22 O.O.2d
214, 188 N.E.2d 424, paragraph two of the syllabus. R.C.
3319.11(G)(7) states in pertinent part: "[T]he court in an
appeal under this division *** shall have no jurisdiction to
order a board to reemploy a teacher, except *** when the court
determines that evaluation procedures have not been complied
with pursuant to division (A) of section 3319.111 of the
Revised Code." R.C. 3319.111 enumerates the procedural
requirements that school boards must follow in separate
divisions, (A) and (B). I believe this separation was
intentional. The clear import of the above-quoted language is
that the General Assembly intended the remedy of reinstatement
to be available only for violations of division (A), not for
violations of division (B).
If the General Assembly had intended reinstatement to be
an available remedy for violations of division (B), it could
have done so, quite clearly, in two ways. It could have
deleted the words "division (A) of" from the above-quoted
portion of R.C. 3319.11(G)(7). Else, it could have added the
words "or (B)" to the same clause. Either method would have
unequivocally made violations of division (B) grounds for
reinstatement.
A court must interpret a statute so as to give effect to
every word in it. See, e.g., E. Ohio Gas Co. v. Pub. Util.

Comm. (1988), 39 Ohio St.3d 295, 530 N.E.2d 875; State ex rel.
Bohan v. Indus. Comm. (1946), 147 Ohio St. 249, 34 O.O. 151, 70
N.E.2d 888. The majority's interpretation effectively reads
the words "division (A) of" out of R.C. 3319.11(G)(7). If the
General Assembly had intended reinstatement to be a remedy for
violations of R.C. 3319.111(B), it would have expressly said
so. Because it did not, I respectfully dissent.
Wright and Deshler, JJ., concur in the foregoing
dissenting opinion.