Question 6: You’re on the BOE, and your child’s favorite teacher becomes the subject of serious allegations. The school district investigates and shares the results with the BOE. The district is now recommending that the BOE approve firing this teacher. What do you do?
David Rullo: The termination of an employee, regardless of circumstances, is always a difficult decision. It is not one of the responsibilities that a normal person would enjoy exercising. But, that’s the job, this is what you sign up for when you take the position.
The most important part of exercising this power is doing it in the most sober and thorough manner possible. My training as a lawyer has made me particularly attuned to due process and its overwhelming importance in our system of government. And due process is not just for the courtroom, but, if you fail to abide by it, you will find yourself there rather quickly. Not to get too into the weeds on the law, but the Board of Education is the government, so the due process bar is much higher than an ordinary employer in addition to this there is state law as well as any active collective bargaining agreements to abide by. To not cross every ‘t’ and dot every “i” would be reckless.
Over the past twenty years, I have held people’s lives and livelihood’s in my hand’s countless times. And it never gets easier… ever. So, I would approach this scenario as I have every other time I’ve had to do something similar in the past. And that is with an open mind and an eye for the rules, but also the idea that people mess up and rarely ever deserve to have the book thrown at them.
In this specific scenario, I would give as much deference to the information provided by the district as possible. This is the same reason an appellate court will give substantial deference to a trial judge’s determinations of the credibility of witnesses; they were the ones sitting in the room when the witnesses gave their testimony. Assuming the investigation was through and fair, which I would verify with my colleagues on the board, then we would vote to dismiss the teacher. And no one would be happy about it, because you never are.
