Know Your Rights: ‘Tis the Season for Non-Renewal of Employment Contracts

From the Executive Director
Jim Ballard

The next ten weeks is the season for non-renewal for school administrator employment contracts. If your contract is at risk, please call us early in the process.
Please, don’t wait. More than once I’ve had members call asking for help and telling me that the Board meeting was scheduled that afternoon!
Please, know your contract. You wouldn’t believe the members we speak with who don’t have a contract, don’t know where their contract is, or haven’t read their contract.

What MASSP Does
You will be given the phone number and ID number to contact a labor attorney. He/she will assist you in this difficult and emotional process. The association pays for the first two and half hours (we’re billed for $450) of legal counsel. If you need additional time and support, you will be billed for an additional $250. If more legal time is needed, the MASSP checkbook will pay the balance up to $5,000. Your cost is no more than $250.
If you’re a combination MASSP/NASSP member, NASSP has a $500 deductible, with what MASSP and you pay, meets this deductible. Then you seek payment from NASSP for the balance. They have a floating amount based upon years of membership. MASSP does no have this. We just pay the balance of what NASSP hasn’t paid.

Here’s the law that covers non-renewal of employment contracts for school administrators from the Revised School Code:
380.1229 Employment of superintendent and administrators; notification of contract nonrenewal; meeting with board.

Sec. 1229.
(1) The board of a school district, other than a school district that was organized as a primary school district during the 1995-1996 school year, or intermediate school district shall employ a superintendent of schools, who shall meet the requirements of section 1246. The superintendent shall not be a member of the board. Employment of a superintendent shall be by written contract. The term of the superintendent’s contract shall be fixed by the board, not to exceed 5 years. If written notice of nonrenewal of the contract of a superintendent is not given at least 90 days before the termination of the contract, the contract is renewed for an additional 1-year period.
(2) The board of a school district or intermediate school district may employ assistant superintendents, principals, assistant principals, guidance directors, and other administrators who do not assume tenure in that position under Act No. 4 of the Public Acts of the Extra Session of 1937, being sections 38.71 to 38.191 of the Michigan Compiled Laws. The employment shall be by written contract. The term of the employment contract shall be fixed by the board, not to exceed 3 years. The board shall prescribe the duties of a person described in this subsection. If written notice of nonrenewal of the contract of a person described in this subsection is not given at least 60 days before the termination date of the contract, the contract is renewed for an additional 1-year period.
(3) A notification of nonrenewal of contract of a person described in subsection (2) may be given only for a reason that is not arbitrary or capricious. The board shall not issue a notice of nonrenewal under this section unless the affected person has been provided with not less than 30 days’ advance notice that the board is considering the nonrenewal together with a written statement of the reasons the board is considering the nonrenewal. After the issuance of the written statement, but before the nonrenewal statement is issued, the affected person shall be given the opportunity to meet with not less than a majority of the board to discuss the reasons stated in the written statement. The meeting shall be open to the public or a closed session, as the affected person elects under section 8 of the open meetings act, Act No. 267 of the Public Acts of 1976, being section 15.268 of the Michigan Compiled Laws. If the board fails to provide for a meeting with the board, or if a court finds that the reason for nonrenewal is arbitrary or capricious, the affected person’s contract is renewed for an additional 1-year period. This subsection does not apply to the nonrenewal of the contract of a superintendent of schools described in subsection (1).