On Board Online • August 31, 2026

By Shubh N. McTague
Staff Counsel

In Appeal of Doe, the commissioner of education found that the transfer of a teacher to another elementary school building was used as a means of discipline and had to be annulled. The commissioner noted the transfer occurred after the issuance of a counseling memo saying he had been interacting inappropriately with a student and that he would be reassigned.

School districts may place a counseling letter with some form of criticism (known as a "Holt letter") in the personnel file of a tenured teacher. A Holt letter, however, may not be used as a form of discipline, which would require a district to conduct a section 3020-a disciplinary hearing.

In this case, an elementary school teacher received a counseling memo that stated he repeatedly referred to a fifth grade student as "bestie."

He also "made heart gestures toward her, walked her out of the building at dismissal time despite the student indicating that she did not want [him] to do so, gave the student (and not other students) a handmade birthday card, sent the student non-school-related emails, and posted multiple copies of a photo of [him] and the student throughout the classroom."

The counseling memo stated the teacher would be reassigned to a teaching position in a different elementary school because the placement at his current location was inappropriate.

The memo directed the teacher to complete professional development and counseling, prohibited future communications with the student, and prevented him from meeting with any student, current or former, unless there was another adult physically present. The teacher admitted to some, but not all, of the behavior.

After the memo was issued, the teacher filed an appeal with the commissioner, alleging that his involuntary transfer to the other school was disciplinary in nature. He requested the transfer be annulled and the transfer and counseling memo be expunged from his personnel file.

The commissioner determined that the district had used reassignment as a means of discipline and this action had to be annulled based on the language used in the memo. Specifically, the memo stated that he was being transferred "as a result of" the findings of investigation.

The district argued that the reason he was being transferred was because of an opening in the other building matching his skill set, but the commissioner found the memo language to be more persuasive, as there was no evidence to suggest he was being considered for the job when it was posted.

While the reference to the transfer had to be expunged, the commissioner held that the teacher was not entitled to have the entirety of the counseling memo expunged. The commissioner noted that the teacher's appeal did not address a number of relevant factors, such as (1) whether the memo was directed towards improvement in performance or was a reprimand for prior misconduct; and (2) the severity of the misconduct and the admonition/reprimand. The commissioner stated that "while the timing of the counseling memorandum is relevant to assessing [the teacher's] transfer, [the teacher] has failed to prove that the memorandum, in and of itself, was disciplinary in nature."

Finally, the commissioner remarked on the seriousness of the teacher's misconduct regarding the student/teacher relationship. The commissioner stated that the teacher was an adult who should have known how to appropriately interact with students and was therefore skeptical that the misconduct did not warrant 3020-a charges. The commissioner annulled the appeal without prejudice, which means that the issue could be raised again, depending on the circumstances.