A current teacher and a retired teacher are suing the Clayton County school district for breach of contract because their salaries were cut after they signed contracts and because money was taken from their pay checks to cover the cost of snow days that were retroactively counted as furlough days.
Deborah Stansell, who teaches English as a second language, and Linda Plummer brought the suit but they ask that all teachers in the district be included.
The contracts offered to teachers the current and previous school years were generic and simply referred to a schedule of salaries based on experience and certifications, according to the complaint.
“It was bait and switch,” said Blake Andrews, one of the three attorneys representing the teachers. "After these teachers entered into these contracts, the school district essentially rewrote the terms."
Also, according to the lawsuit that was filed on March 5, the system violated teacher contracts with retroactive furloughs implemented to save money.
Facing budget problems, the district decided late in the 2010-11 school year that teachers should be furloughed five days. With little time remaining in the term, they applied four of those days to days in January when classes were canceled because of snow, and they took back the money after it had been paid.
"It made our clients indebted to the school district because they had to repay money already received," Andrews said.
He said those four days in January were not true furlough days because the teachers were required to be available for work. They are free of all work obligations on furlough days.
The teachers want their pay restored. And the lawsuit asks for a jury trial.
Sid Chapman, president of the Clayton County Education Association, said the school system officials seem to "want more for less. The teachers are just really frustrated now. I hear all the time... [of] people wanting to leave the profession because they are abused. Bullied and abused."
Douglas Hendrix with Clayton County schools district officials had not seen the lawsuit so they could not comment.
According to the suit, for many years teachers were offered contracts that included a specific salary along with the number of days they would work in the upcoming term.
But beginning with contracts for the 2010-11, some of the wording in the documents was changed. The revised contracts did not include a specific salary. Instead the contract said teachers would get a “salary commensurate with the current Clayton County Public School System Salary Schedule,” which was posted on the Internet. The schedule showed pay according to experience and certification.
Andrews said the board then changed that schedule about a month after teachers returned the signed contracts for the 2010-11 school year.
For her years of experience and her certification, Stansell, who teaches in an elementary school, expected to earn $69,542. The revised salary schedule dropped her pay to $65,819.
Plummer, now a retired special education teacher, expected to make $60,718 in the 2010-11 school term but instead she received $58,974.
The lawsuit asks that all 2,500 teachers in Clayton County schools be included because each of them signed the same contracts.
Initially, Stansell and Plummer tried to stop the school district from taking their pay for the four retroactive furlough days by asking a federal judge last year for a temporary restraining order. When District Judge Richard Storey lifted his retraining order in June, he said the teachers may be able to reclaim their money via a breach of contract lawsuit.
The issue with the pay cut after contracts were signed was not part of the federal filing but it was included in the suit filed this month in Clayton County Superior Court.
Andrews said teachers were required to honor their commitments in the contract but the district had felt free to go "back on what they promised the teachers. They essentially took money from the teachers in order to cover what they claim were budgetary problems."
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