McNickels v. Richmond Unified School District

Opinion

BROWN (H. C.), J. The appellants are three school teachers who claim their employer, the Richmond School District, made wrongful deductions [1211]from their salaries for absences while on strike. It is conceded that their absences were unauthorized and that deductions for unauthorized absences are proper. Appellants contend, however, that the trial court erred in failing to order the district to use the formula prescribed in Education Code section 13520 in making those deductions.

The facts are not disputed. The appellants are employed as teachers by the respondent school district. During the 1966-1967 school year, appellants and other teachers went on strike for the period of September 12 through September 19. The respondent deducted from their salaries an amount equal to 1/179th of their annual salary for each day they were absent from work. The basis of this ratio was that the schools in respondent’s district were in actual session for 179 days of that school year. Appellants claim that if deductions are to be made the formula used by the district and approved by the trial court is in violation of Education Code section 13520. By applying this code section, the ratio is conceded to be l/282d of each teacher’s salary.

Section 13520 of the Education Code states as follows: “A person in a position requiring certification qualifications who serves less than a full school year shall receive as salary only an amount that bears the same ratio to the established annual salary for the position as the time he serves bears to the annual school term. For the purpose of this section, the school term as it applies to each certificated employee shall include each day the schools of the district are in session, each school holiday as defined in Sections 5201 to 5210, inclusive, and Sections 5713, 5901, and 6362 of this code, each day of teachers’ institute and any other day when the employee is required by the governing board to be present at the schools of the district or to perform services for the district, and the employee shall be deemed to have served the district on each of said days unless he fails to perform the duties required of him for the day and is not entitled to leave of absence from such duties with pay. This section shall not be so construed as to prevent the payment of compensation to a person while on leave of absence when the payment of the compensation is authorized by law.” (Italics added.)

Under the above section, the school term would include week ends and school holidays, as well as the actual days on which teaching took place. For the 1966-1967 academic year in the respondent district, this term would be for a period of 282 days. If the nonteaching days were not counted, however, there would be only 179 days on which teachers were actually performing their duties. To a teacher earning $12,000 per year, each day of absence would result in a pay loss of $42 if the formula prescribed in section 13520 is used. Under the formula followed by the trial court, the loss was $67 per day.