Education Employment Law

Published on: June 21, 2023

Update on Sanjuan v. School District of West New York Case: NJ Supreme Court Grants Certiorari in Education Employment Case

UPDATE: This post was originally published on January 3, 2023. On May 22, 2023, the Supreme Court of New Jersey granted a writ of certiorari, meaning it will review the Appellate Division’s opinion in this case. The original post is below. Stand by for more.

ORIGINAL POST:

In many areas of New Jersey employment law, the scope of an arbitrator’s powers is a significant question. This is particularly true in the adjudication of tenure charges against New Jersey teachers and principals. The Appellate Division of New Jersey’s Superior Court squarely addressed this issue in the recently published decision in the case of Sanjuan v. School District of West New York.

Published on: February 6, 2023

New Jersey Tenure FAQs

by Maurice W. McLaughlin

What is tenure?

Under New Jersey employment law, tenure is an added layer of job protection for certain public school employees.

What protections does tenure provide for eligible New Jersey education employees?

Published on: January 5, 2023

New Jersey Age Discrimination in Employment Protections Strengthened

by Maurice W. McLaughlin

The New Jersey Law Against Discrimination

New Jersey employment law has long been at the forefront of prohibiting discrimination. Indeed, the Legislature adopted New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination in 1945, long before the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 first banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, and even before the President Harry Truman’s Executive Order desegregating the Armed Forces in 1948. The Law Against Discrimination has been amended many times since then to expand the protections against discrimination in employment, and decisions by New Jersey courts have interpreted the Law to provide much broader protections than those provided by similar Federal statutes such as the Federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (known as the “ADEA”). However, the Law Against Discrimination is not without its flaws. The New Jersey Legislature acted in 2021 to fix one of these flaws by strengthening the protections against age discrimination.

Prior Loopholes in Age Discrimination Protections

Published on: January 3, 2023

New Jersey Employment Law Decision Examines Arbitrator’s Powers in Principal and Teacher Tenure Hearing Appeals

by Maurice W. McLaughlin

In many areas of New Jersey employment law, the scope of an arbitrator’s powers is a significant question. This is particularly true in the adjudication of tenure charges against New Jersey teachers and principals. The Appellate Division of New Jersey’s Superior Court squarely addressed this issue in the recently published decision in the case of Sanjuan v. School District of West New York.

The Sanjuan Case: Background

The Court explained that Amada Sanjuan was an assistant principal with the West New York Board of Education, after having been hired as a teacher in 1997. On February 12, 2020, she fell down a flight of stairs. Video of the scene showed that after she fell, she removed a piece of paper from her purse and placed it at the top of the stairs. She pointed out the paper to a custodian and teacher who came to help her and explained that the paper caused her fall. Sanjuan was out of work thereafter, but confirmed this version in a signed injury report.

Published on: June 20, 2022

Appellate Division Addresses Notice Required Before Teacher Waives Her New Jersey Tenure Rights

by Maurice W. McLaughlin

New Jersey employment law provides many protections to employees. One of the strongest of these is the tenure rights afforded to public school teachers. Even with such strong protections, for many reasons employees sometimes decide to forgo these rights. The Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey recently addressed a question about what notice is required when a full-time teacher voluntarily moves to a part-time position before she will be deemed to have waived her tenure rights to a back-to-school-1576791__340-300x200 full-time position in the case of Parsells v. Board of Education of the Borough of Somerville.

Background

Catherine Parsells was a tenured teacher with the Somerville, New Jersey, Board of Education. She began working there in 2010. In May 2016, a part-time teaching position with benefits became available. She applied so that she could spend more time with her young son, and her application was approved. Thereafter, Parsells went out on maternity leave on February 2, 2017. She advised the superintendent that she intended to return to the part-time job the following year; he advised that she could, but the job would no longer have benefits, and that if she wanted befits she would have to work in a full-time position. She continued part-time and later declined a new full-time position for family reasons. She extended her maternity leave to include the entire 2017-2018 school year.