Mr. Martinez had a three-year contract as a “Certified Professional Administrator.”  Up until the summer of 2017, he was assigned as the district’s Director of Parental Involvement.  Then the superintendent reassigned him to be a Truancy Officer.  His salary and benefits would remain the same.

Mr. Martinez filed a grievance over this and obtained some relief, but not what he wanted.  He wanted to be put back in his previous job.  That did not happen, but his title was changed to Attendance and Adjudication Administrator.

Still dissatisfied, Mr. Martinez took his complaint to the school board (grievance denied) and then to the T.E.A.  Now the Commissioner has tossed the case out for lack of jurisdiction.  The decision points out that the Commissioner has jurisdiction over personnel disputes if they 1) involve a breach of contract that caused monetary harm; or 2) if the term contract employee was not renewed in the same professional capacity.

There was no monetary harm here:

If an employee does not lose salary or benefits based on an alleged violation of a written contract, the employee has not suffered monetary harm.

And the term contract was not being nonrenewed.  The contract was just beginning the third of its three years:

The requirement in T.E.C. section 21.206(b) to employ a teacher in the same professional capacity is triggered only when a contract is about to expire and timely notice of proposed nonrenewal is not given.

Thus the Commissioner lacked jurisdiction and the reassignment was upheld. The case is Martinez v. Rio Grande City CISD, decided by the Commissioner on September 17, 2018.  It’s Docket No. 040-R3-03-2018.

DAWG BONE: TOUGH TO PREVAIL ON A REASSIGNMENT CASE.

 Enjoy the weekend! We’ll be back with more Daily Dawg next week.