Opinion
May 26, 1998
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Nassau County (Kohn, J.)
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed, with costs to the respondents.
The appellant Board of Education of the East Islip Union Free School District (hereinafter the Board) correctly contends that a teachers rights with respect to tenure are waivable when the waiver is freely, knowingly, and openly arrived at without the taint of coercion or duress ( see, Matter of Feinerman v. Board of Coop. Educ. Servs., 48 N.Y.2d 491; Matter of Abramovich v. Board of Educ., 46 N.Y.2d 450, cert denied 444 U.S. 845; Matter of Moore v. Board of Educ., 116 A.D.2d 273). This does not, however, give the Board the authority to eliminate the tenure system altogether.
The tenure system is a legislative expression of a firm public policy determination that the interests of the public in the education of our youth can best be served by a system designed to foster academic freedom and to protect competent teachers from the threat of arbitrary dismissal ( see, Ricca v. Board of Educ., 47 N.Y.2d 385). The system proposed by the Board, i.e., tenure by contract terminating automatically at the expiration of the contract, is the very system sought to be eliminated by the enactment of the tenure statutes of the Education Law and the change to a system of permanence ( see, Education Law § 3012; Matter of Carter v. Kalamejski, 255 App. Div.. 694, affd 280 N.Y. 803). Accordingly, "the resolution implementing this system was improper and the petition was properly granted.
In light of the foregoing determination, the Boards remaining contentions need not be addressed.
Rosenblatt, J.P., Miller, Thompson and Santucci, JJ., concur.