Pursuant to the power granted in him by the Governor in Executive Order 7C, in a Memorandum to Superintendents of Schools dated April 13, 2020, Commissioner of Education Dr. Miguel A. Cardona modified the statutory requirements for non-renewals for the 2019-20 school year.
Specifically, the Memorandum does the following:
- Notes non-renewals can still occur by May 1.
- Notification of the non-renewal or providing reasons can be accomplished via email to the teacher’s district email account and to his/her union.
- Requests for hearings can be delayed up to 90 days.
- Districts that are undecided about non-renewal can extend the deadline for notification for up to a year, provided it notified the teacher not later than May 1, it is considering non-renewal but wants more time to consider the decision given the impact of the Coronavirus or school closures. The District is obligated to first discuss with the teachers’ union the period of delay/extension in providing such notification.
The ability to postpone non-renewal decision may be helpful where, due to unresolved budgets, the District feels a need to non-renew a whole class (or all) of non-tenured teachers, but would rather not unnecessarily have to notify teachers of non-renewal.
Feel free to contact Floyd J. Dugas, Esq. if you wish to discuss the modifications to the non-renewal process discussed above.