Phillis v. Board of School Directors of Mechanicsburg Area School District

617 A.2d 830, 151 Pa. Commw. 497, 1992 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 696
CourtCommonwealth Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedNovember 17, 1992
DocketNo. 1714 C.D. 1991
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 617 A.2d 830 (Phillis v. Board of School Directors of Mechanicsburg Area School District) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Phillis v. Board of School Directors of Mechanicsburg Area School District, 617 A.2d 830, 151 Pa. Commw. 497, 1992 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 696 (Pa. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinions

PELLEGRINI, Judge.

Debra Phillis (Phillis) appeals an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Cumberland County (trial court) dismissing her appeal from ,an adverse adjudication of the Board of School Directors of the Mechanicsburg Area School District (Board). The Board upheld the Mechanicsburg Area School District’s (District) unsatisfactory rating of Phillis that resulted in the denial of tenure. We affirm.

The District hired Phillis to teach sixth grade in the elementary school for the 1988-89 school year. Under Section 1101 of the Public School Code of 1949 (Code), she was classified as a “temporary professional employee.”1 Section 1108 of the Code requires the District to rate Phillis twice a school year. For the 1988-89 school year, she received satisfactory ratings. The District asked her to return to teach at the intermediate school for the 1989-90 year. During the first semester of that year, Phillis received a satisfactory rating. However, her numerical scores were lower than her past scores, and the rating called for improvement in certain areas. In May 1990, she received an unsatisfactory rating and was dismissed.2 If Phillis had received a satisfactory rating, she would have been entitled to tenure and the status of a “professional employee” under Section 1108(b) of the Code, 24 P.S. § ll-1108(b).3

[501]*501Because Phillis was not a tenured professional employee, she was not entitled to a Board hearing prior to her dismissal pursuant to Section 1122 of the Code, 24 P.S. § 11-1122.4 Phillis, however, was entitled to and did request a hearing before the Board to challenge her unsatisfactory rating and dismissal under the provisions of the Local Agency Law.5 At that hearing, the District introduced the official rating documents and presented the testimony of Leonard Ference (Principal Ference), the principal at the school where Phillis taught and the supervisor who gave her the unsatisfactory rating. Principal Ference testified that he was concerned with Phillis’ performance throughout the year, how he addressed those concerns with Phillis, and the process he used to determine her rating. Phillis testified on her own behalf and presented other witnesses. The Board upheld the unsatisfactory rating and the resulting dismissal. Phillis appealed the Board’s decision to the trial court.

Phillis contended that the Board erred in upholding the unsatisfactory rating because the decision was not supported by the evidence, and that the Board made errors of law in its conduct of the hearing. After allowing the Board to amend the record by formally introducing the anecdotal records,6 the trial court dismissed Phillis’ appeal. Phillis then filed this appeal.7

[502]*502Phillis contends that the District failed to meet its burden to prove the prima facie validity of the rating because it did not formally introduce supporting anecdotal records, that she was denied due process because she was not given notice of “charges” made against her, that the Board improperly did not allow her to introduce certain evidence at the hearing, and that the unsatisfactory rating was arbitrary and capricious.

In a hearing on an unsatisfactory rating requested by a temporary professional employee, there is a shifting burden of proof. As we stated in Kudasik v. Board of Directors, Port Allegheny School District, 71 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. 443, 450, 455 A.2d 261, 264 (1983):

[T]he school authorities have the burden of ‘going forward’ with the records of the unsatisfactory rating and the persons whose observations were the basis for that rating. Kasper v. Girard School District, 25 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. 552, 555, 361 A.2d 471 (1976). Such evidence establishes prima facie the validity of the rating and a discharge based on the rating. Homan. It then becomes the burden of the temporary professional employee to prove that the unsatisfactory rating, or the consequent dismissal, was fraudulent, arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law. (Citation omitted).

The burden is placed on the temporary professional employees because, due to their untenured status, they are not entitled to have the school district prove a statutory basis as it must do when it dismisses a tenured professional employee. Otherwise, there would be no difference between a tenured and a non-tenured employee for purposes of dismissal. Young v. Littlestown Schools, 24 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. 621, 632, 358 A.2d 120, 126 (1976).

In this case, the District introduced into evidence the rating sheets which were signed as being received by Phillis and approved by the District superintendent. Principal Ference also testified as to his rating process and the reasons for the unsatisfactory rating, referring to the anecdotal records made during the process. Phillis contends that the District did not meet its initial burden to make a prima facie case, [503]*503because it did not formally introduce the anecdotal records from its files at the Board’s hearing. She contends that 22 Pa.Code § 351.268 not only requires that anecdotal records must exist, it inferentially requires that anecdotal records must be formally introduced at the hearing to support the unsatisfactory rating. While the regulation does require that anecdotal records exist to support the rating in the event of a dismissal, it does not address how these records should be utilized by the District when a temporary professional employee requests a hearing. Nor do any other regulations require the District to formally introduce the anecdotal records at the hearing on the unsatisfactory rating.

Where the person who rated the temporary professional employee testifies and explains the rating process and the observations which were the basis of the rating, there is no need to introduce all the anecdotal records kept by that person during the rating process to make out the prima facie case. In Kasper, where the district produced the record of the ratings and the testimony of the persons whose observations formed the basis of the ratings, we held that the district had made the prima facie case of the validity of the ratings. Kasper, 25 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. at 555, 361 A.2d at 473. Similarly, in Kudasik, we found that the school district established the prima facie validity of its rating and dismissal once it introduced as evidence to the school board the rating sheet and the attached notes and the testimony of the supervisor. Kudasik, 71 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. at 451, 455 A.2d at 264. Because Phillis was a temporary professional employee, the introduction of the rating documents and the testimony of Principal Ference was all that was required of the District to make out a prima facie case and shift the burden to Phillis.

Even if the failure to introduce the anecdotal records is not fatal to the District’s prima facie case, Phillis then argues that the records themselves are inadequate to support or [504]*504justify the unsatisfactory rating.9

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Bluebook (online)
617 A.2d 830, 151 Pa. Commw. 497, 1992 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 696, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/phillis-v-board-of-school-directors-of-mechanicsburg-area-school-district-pacommwct-1992.