Davis v. School Directors

Citations

• 92 Ill. 293

Syllabus

<p>1. Schools—employment of teachers for the current or succeeding year—what board of directors have the power. The statute has appointed the first Saturday in April in each year as the time for the election of a school director in each district, and the school year commences at that time. An annual reorganization of the board of directors is required, and the intention of the statute is that the board organized for a given year shall exercise the powers and control the schools of their district during that year.</p> <p>2. In this case one of the members of a board of school directors, on the 25 th of March, made a verbal agreement with a person to employ him to teach a school in the district for three months from the 17th day of April following, this agreement to be reduced to writing when the board should meet. On the 5th day of April the director who made this verbal agreement, and one other director, reduced the verbal agreement to writing and executed the same, antedating it to the 25th of March. The third director had no knowledge of this arrangement at the time it was entered into. The 5th day of April was subsequent to the day appointed by the statute for the election of a director.</p> <p>But the election was not held on that day, having been deferred to the 15th of the month, when another person was elected in the place of the one who had made the verbal agreement with the teacher. A majority of the new board refused to sanction or recognize the contract, and rightly so. A single director had no power to make such a contract. Moreover, the old board of directors had no authority to employ a teacher under a contract to be performed in the succeeding school year.</p>