A "Poster Child" for Teacher Due Process Rights in Kansas

Speech by Leota Coats
To the South Central UniServ May Banquet
May 1, 2014

I’d like to tell you why due process is vitally important to the teaching profession.   In April, 1980, I was in my seventh year as a language arts teacher and department chair at Wellington High School.   I was also five months pregnant with my second child.  One day in April during my third hour class, the principal walked in and dropped a sealed envelope on my desk without so much as a word about its contents.   I was not prepared for the news in the envelope; I had no inkling that it was my nonrenewal notice supposedly because of reduction-in-force.   As I read it, I felt my world had ended, or at least some really bad mistake had been made.   I was angry, hurt, surprised.  In retrospect, there were signs.  There was the off-handed remark of a student earlier in the month who said, “Mrs. Coats, the Coach says you’re not going to be back next year.  Is that true?” There were other comments, other whispers, that at the time I laughed off and tired to ignore, but looking back I could see the ominous indications of what was yet to come.

I was known as a fair teacher with high expectations for my students.  I expected them to do their work, do their best and behave themselves.  Occasionally I’d rock the boat when I turned in my list for student athlete eligibility.  That fall, I’d caused a ruckus because one of the star football players was ineligible to play in a crucial game because of his grades in my class.  I was pressured to change the grade so he could play, but I couldn’t justify doing so. I was there to TEACH, not enable dishonesty.  I became a target for non-renewal.

 Right after school, I went to our local KNEA president , Ernie Jimison, who put me in touch with Dave Kirkbride, our South Central Uniserv Director.  As my husband and  I talked it over, we never questioned whether to fight, but how to fight.   There was, after all, a principle at stake (no pun intended).   I had been treated unfairly as a tenured teacher and there were other obvious options were open to the board.

We met with Dave the next day, and as events unfolded, I became aware of the tenuous status of a crusader.  Few of my building colleagues wanted me to fight the nonrenewal – it would rock the boat, and “things” might get unpleasant.  Their lack of support hurt deeply and reveled how deeply-seated was their fear of drawing attention to the capricious injustice of the school board.   Finishing the school year was, to say the least, tedious.  Nasty little things happened, like notes left in my box saying I’d never teach in again Kansas and rumors that I was blacklisted.

In June, the due process panel gathered but not without turmoil.  At that time, due process began with a hearing before an impartial three-person board.  The administration chose a member of the board, the teacher chose the second person, and those two would choose the third person.  The board appointed its own attorney as their “impartial” panel member.   My representative was a local attorney who was known for his pro-education stance.  Getting the third panel member was difficult as none of our suggestions suited the board and none of theirs was even remotely viable.  So the District Court was asked to appoint the third panel member who was supposed to serve as chair of the panel.  The judge appointed the husband of his secretary, a local farmer.  The appointee was, as time went on, obviously out of his element.  He later told my husband and me that he looked up the word tenure in a dictionary, and it didn’t have anything to do with teaching so he voted against us.

The hearing lasted two days, but it seemed like an eternity.  Our darkest hours came when the panel found two to one against us.   We immediately appealed the decision of the due process panel to the District Court.

To be clear, our lawsuit did not focus on the athletic turmoil.  That just made me the administration’s obvious choice for non-renewal.  Basically we took two issues to litigation:  whether a tenured teacher could be non-renewed over a non-tenured teacher whose position the tenured teacher was qualified to fill; and whether the board’s appointment of its own attorney as a member of the impartial hearing panel was correct.

That September was especially hard on me.   It was the first beginning of school that I hadn’t started since I was a first grader in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth.  My spirits were low and my hopes were dragged down with them.   But a strange, somewhat ironic series of events occurred beginning with the second week of September.   I received a call from the principal at Belle Plaine, a small town 17 miles away.  He said, “I understand you’re an English teacher.  Would  you be able to come interview and perhaps start right away?”  He explained that the teacher who had started the year had abruptly resigned and left so he was desperate.  (Made me feel good to be the “desperate” answer to his problem and wonder what made the teacher flee so abruptly.)

I explained that I’d be delighted to interview, but I was about to have a baby so I couldn’t start immediately.   The next day I interviewed.

During this time, Dave consistently went far above and beyond the call of duty, tirelessly advocating, organizing and agitating for our cause.   Fortunately for our cause, the principal at Belle Plaine was brand new as an administrator and still rather respected the UniServ directors.  He called Dave who met with him and assured him of my competence and ability to do the job.  The Board at Belle Plaine was reluctant to hire me because of my case pending in District Court.   They were probably also prejudiced to my case because their attorney was the same man who served as the Wellington school board attorney.   (Remember the man who was the “impartial” panel member? )  

In his persuasive way, Dave convinced the principal to give me a chance.  The principal told Dave, “If this doesn’t work out, I’ll never trust UniServ directors again.”  I was offered a contract in, of all places, St. Lukes Hospital just hours after having given birth to our second daughter, Sarah, thereafter referred to at the UniServ office as “Baby UniServ.”   The contract offer was contingent on Dave’s helping to find a substitute for me until the doctor would release me to go back to work.  Dave worked a miracle, and I was back at work six weeks later.

Meanwhile, our case sat gathering dust in District Court.   The waiting was extremely trying.   I frayed nerves all around me:  my own, my family’s, Dave’s, and my KNEA sponsored attorney, Lee Kinch.   It seemed to me that part of the punishment of nonrenewal was in the torture of waiting and waiting.

In 1982 the District Court in Wellington found in our favor and ordered my reinstatement at WHS.  We tempered our excitement with the fairly sure knowledge that the decision would be appealed, as it was to the  Court of
Appeals.  More waiting seemed like adding insult to injury.

Just as it seemed as though nothing was ever going to be resolved, the wheels of justice got a little shove.  The Kansas Supreme Court agreed to take our case, citing its “novel relevance to labor law” and the certainty that whichever side won in the decision in the Court of Appeals, it would be appealed to them.  

On the way to Topeka for the arguments before the Supreme Court, Dave and I talked about the impact the Court’s decision would have.  Win or lose, the case of Coats vs. USD #353 would be far reaching for years to come.   If we lost – we shuddered to think of that outcome.  If we won, tenure for teachers would actually mean something.

In January, 1983, the Kansas Supreme Court heard arguments in Coats v. USD #353.  I’ve always found the mechanisms of legal proceedings fascinating, yet listening to my name being bandied about was an unnerving yet unforgettable experience.   We left feeling hopeful but cautious.   The court wasn’t known for its kindness to educational causes, especially teachers’ rights.

In April 1983, the Kansas Supreme Court voted unanimously in our favor on all counts, the first unanimous decision for teacher rights.  Due process and tenure had legal teeth in the battle for teachers’ rights.  I’ve referred to “our” case throughout because it really was a case for all of us.

With the Kansas-NEA, we rocked the boat but the result was a safer ride for all of us, all 23,003 of us who make up the Kansas NEA.

But now, 31 years later, it’s all changed, thanks to the Kansas legislature and Governor Brownback.  The Governor and his legislative cohorts signed away our due process rights and we are now targets once again for capricious, arbitrary and irrational administrations and school boards.

For all these decades, due process has worked well.  Contrary to our opponents’ assertions, due process does NOT protect bad teachers.  Administrators who won’t do their jobs protect bad teachers.  Due process gives good teachers the opportunity to teach even when the occasional administration or school board acts irrationally.

And now without due process protection, that specter looms large.   Any number of scenarios haunt us: a principal may have a sister-in-law who wants your job.  You’re out.  You may have a difference of opinion about a school board member’s child.  You’re out.  You may have a losing basketball team.  You’re gone.  You may disagree with the administration about a policy.  You’re gone.  Or a principal may just not like you.  These nightmares could go on and on.

Tenure gave Kansas a stable corps of qualified educators.  Now, there may be wholesale turn-over throughout the state.

But enough gloom and doom.  I heard the cutting of due process described as Kansas teachers’ Pearl Harbor.  Like the Japanese who attacked Pearl Harbor,  the legislature snuck up on us and sank our ships.  But it didn’t work out so well for the attackers then, and it won’t for us now. . . .if we fight back.

We must organize a state-wide campaign to change the legislature and the governor’s mansion.  Elections have consequences.  And we can get back our due process rights, working together.

I’ve heard it said that we deserve what we tolerate.  I say we cannot tolerate legislative incompetence any longer.  Let’s clean House and Senate and the Governor’s mansion.  So I’ll leave you with one word: VOTE.

Leota to the South Central legislators: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_hPao-FhJ4#t=98&hd=1