Section 29 Permanent Teachers

• Library: Employer-Employee Law 2008

The principal right granted by the TTA is “permanent status,” commonly referred to as tenure. The TTA limits the reasons for and manner in which the “indefinite contract” of a “permanent” or tenured teacher may be terminated. The purpose of enacting these tenure provisions “was to attain stability, certainty and permanence of employment on the part of those who have shown by educational attainment and by a probationary period their fitness for the important profession of teaching.” Lopez v. Vance, 509 S.W.2d 197, 202 (Mo. App. E.D. 1974). By establishing “merit as the essential basis for the right of permanent employment,” the TTA benefits the school system as well as the teacher. Id.

Section 168.104(4), RSMo Supp. 2007, sets forth a formula for acquiring tenure by defining a permanent teacher as follows:

[A]ny teacher who has been employed or who is hereafter employed as a teacher in the same school district for five successive years and who has continued or who thereafter continues to be employed as a teacher by the school district or any supervisor of teachers who was employed as a teacher in the same school district for at least five successive years prior to becoming a supervisor of teachers and who continues thereafter to be employed as a certificated employee by the school district; except that, when a permanent teacher resigns or is permanently separated from employment by a...