Nonrenewed Athletic Coordinator Wins Appeal
Ruling: A school district committed a series of errors in nonrenewing the term contract of an athletic coordinator. Tracy Lutich v. Fabens ISD, No. 002-R1-09-2019. Issued Nov. 5 by Education Commissioner Mike Morath.
The record reflects that Lutich was recruited and hired to be FISD’s athletic coordinator, with the district’s athletic director as her supervisor, for School Year 2018-19.
Before the first semester had ended, she was told by the superintendent that the athletic coordinator’s position was eliminated and she was assigned to teach high school business education classes full time. She filed a grievance over the changes, which the school board never issued a decision on after conducting a grievance hearing.
Among other things, the commissioner cited these errors committed by the district in the quest to nonrenew Lutich’s contract:
- Two school board members, should have, but did not, recuse themselves from the grievance hearing because one of the two volleyball coaches that had a disagreement with Lutich was the wife of a board member, whose mother-in-law was also a board member.
The disagreement was reportedly one of the reasons leading to the athletic director recommending eliminating the athletic coordinator’s position soon after the school year began.
The two board members should have recused themselves due to their personal interest in the outcome of Lutich’s grievance, the commissioner noted.
- The school board was never asked by the administration to specifically consider the nonrenewal of Lutich’s athletic coordinator administrator’s contract, which she was still under even after being reassigned mid-year to full-time teaching.
Instead, the board voted to accept the superintendent’s recommendation to enact reduction in force (
RIF) changes to the business education department, which involved teachers in the department with teachers’ contracts.This board action was not sufficient to nonrenew Lutich’s administrator’s contract, the commissioner ruled.
- The school board made impermissible changes to the recommendations by the independent hearing examiner, who had recommended against nonrenewal.
The commissioner ordered FISD to either reinstate Lutich with back pay and benefits, or to compensate her for a year’s worth of back pay and benefits.