Terms of Juul agreement precluded grievance and arbitration of termination

On Board Online • May 13, 2013

By Pilar Sokol
Deputy General Counsel

While acknowledging that a teacher’s termination generally can be subject to the grievance and arbitration provisions of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), a state appellate court recently ruled this was not applicable in the case of a probationary teacher who was terminated after the expiration of a so-called Juul agreement.

A school district and a teacher may enter into a Juul agreement to extend the teacher’s probationary appointment for an additional year in instances when the school superintendent decides to not recommend the teacher for tenure.  The agreement gives the teacher a second chance to prove his or her worth while allowing the district to grant or withhold tenure at the end of the extended period.

In The Matter of the Arbitration Between Bd. of Educ. of Thousand Islands CSD presented a case in which a teacher’s probationary period was extended twice.  In both instances, the teacher was not recommended for tenure at the end of the extended probationary period.  The second time, the teacher was terminated. After the district denied a grievance contesting the termination, the union served a demand for arbitration.

Affirming a lower court’s award of a permanent stay of arbitration in favor of the district, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Fourth Department, acknowledged that termination of employment is a proper subject matter for arbitration under a CBA.  But in exchange for the  the second Juul agreement, the union “waive[d] any right it may have to pursue a grievance under the … CBA … relative to the deferral of the superintendent’s tenure recommendation, [or] the termination of [the teacher’s] employment.”  According to the Fourth Department, that agreement precluded the teacher from pursuing a grievance and arbitration under the CBA in the event of termination.