Baldridge v. Board of Trustees, Rosebud County School District 19 , 287 Mont. 53 ( 1997 )

JUSTICE NELSON

specially concurs.

I concur. In signing our opinion, however, I do not implicitly lend my support to some future argument that our decision in Lincoln Cty. Sch. Dist. No. 13 v. Holden (1988), 231 Mont. 491, 754 P.2d 506, is still good law. While we have distinguished that case from the one at bar based upon the number of instances of inappropriate conduct involved, this is a distinction without any real difference. It is not the number of instances of misconduct that counts but, rather, it is the substance of what was said and done and the complete lack of sensitivity and judgment that such comments and conduct reflect, that is at the heart of the matter. A teacher calling a student a “slob” for inattentiveness or for slouching in his chair or analogizing an overweight child to a blimp cannot be considered acceptable or appropriate conduct by any measure. This is especially true when many of today’s young people are not only obsessed with their appearance but suffer from low self-esteem and from life-threatening eating disorders as well. The classroom should be a place for nurturing not degradation.

I would overrule Holden to the extent that it stands for the proposition that the sorts of comments made in that case are not so serious as to be grounds for dismissal. The sophomoric behavior and insensitive and unprofessional comments at issue in that case and in the one at bar have no place in the classrooms of this State nor do the offending teachers.