Kansas Supreme Court rejects teachers union lawsuit

The Kansas Supreme Court has rejected a lawsuit from the state’s largest teachers union against a 2014 law that weakened a job protection for teachers.

In 2014, the Legislature eliminated a state mandate that public school teachers receive administrative hearings before they can be fired. The legislation was coupled with a larger school finance bill.

The Kansas National Education Association challenged the provision eliminating the mandated protection for teachers on the grounds that the bill violated the one-subject rule, which prohibits legislation from covering multiple topics.

A Shawnee County judge rejected the suit in 2015, concluding that the bill dealt with one subject of education even though it included both policy and appropriations. The Kansas Supreme Court affirmed that ruling Friday.

Individual school districts still have the power to conduct administrative hearings and some, such as the Wichita school district, have chosen to do that. Several districts around the state have fired teachers without hearings since the adoption of the new law.

The Supreme Court’s ruling noted that the KNEA “decries the adverse impact it alleges results to its members and public education” through the policy, but concluded that “the wisdom of the public policy choices reflected in any individual part of a bill is irrelevant to whether the legislation as a whole contains more than one subject.”

KNEA said it would continue to try to restore “statutory due process rights for non-probationary teachers in Kansas. We believe that this fundamental right enables professional educators to advocate fully for their students without fear of punitive reprisal.”

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, said that Democrats plan to introduce a bill to repeal the policy next week.

This story was originally published January 20, 2017 at 10:35 AM with the headline "Kansas Supreme Court rejects teachers union lawsuit."