Bond v. Lavaca School District

J IM HANNAH, Justice,

dissenting. I must respectfully dissent. I cannot agree with the majority’s analysis of Ark. Code Ann. § 6-17-807. The first rule in considering the meaning and effect of a statute is to construe it just as it reads, giving the words their ordinary and usually accepted meaning in common language. Western Carroll Cty. Amb. Dist. v. Johnson, 345 Ark. 95, 44 S.W.2d3d 284 (2001). The language of the statute at issue states, “if additional days are added to a teacher’s contract or if the teacher is required to work more days than provided for under the teacher’s contract. ...” The use of the disjunctive “or” indicates that the statute is aimed at two alternative situations. Clemmons v. Office of Child Spt. Enforce., 345 Ark. 330, 47 S.W.3d 227 (2001). The statute applies where days are added to a contract and also where a teacher is required to work additional days. Thus, it applies where a teacher is required to work additional days. The word “work” is not defined. Its ordinary meaning in this context would simply be work required of the teacher by the district. There is nothing here that limits the work to work where certification is required. To reach the conclusion found by the majority, one must add meaning to the words in the statute that simply is not there. In construing the statute, leaving no word void, superfluous, or insignificant, and giving meaning and effect to every word in the statute, one must conclude the word “work” merely refers to any labor required of the teacher by the district, whether that work is work requiring certification or not. If the Legislature had intended to have said “to teach” rather than “to work,” it would have done so.

Bond contracted to teach in certified areas for the 185-day standard year and to serve as Lavaca School District’s Chapter One Coordinator, a job that does not require teacher certification. Bond contracted to be paid for the position of Chapter One Coordinator by being paid twenty days in addition to the 185 days at the rate of .0005 times her base salary per day, which is less than her contracted certified teacher’s pay. Arkansas Code Annotated § 6-17-807(a) states:

[I]f the teacher is required to work more days than provided for under the teacher’s contract, then the teacher’s pay under the contract shall be increased proportionately so that the teacher will receive pay for each day added to the contract or each additional day the teacher is required to work at no less than the daily rate paid to the teacher under the teacher’s contract.

In this case, Bond was required to work twenty days in addition to the 185 days under the standard contract, and she should be paid at the same rate she is paid as a certified teacher under her contract.

For the above reasons, I respectfully dissent.

Glaze, J., joins in this dissent.