Wells v. People ex rel. Daniels

Citations

• 71 Ill. 532

Syllabus

<p>1. School directors—of their powers. The board of school directors, though a corporation, are possessed of certain specially defined powers, and can exercise no others, except such as result, by fair implication, from the powers granted.</p> <p>2. Same—employing teachers — certificate required. They are expressly empowered to appoint teachers, and fix the amount of their salaries, but they can not employ a teacher who has not, at the time of such employment, a certificate of qualification as provided for by the School Law, and any contract made with a teacher not having such certificate, is void, and is not susceptible of subsequent ratification.</p> <p>3. Where the school directors employed a teacher, who did not have the necessary certificate, to teach a school for six months, and, after having taught three months, he obtained the certificate, and the directors then made a new contract with him, whereby he was to teach three months, at a salary of twice the amount per month he was to receive under the first contract, it -was held, that the first contract was void, and that the new contract was an attempt to do indirectly what the directors had no power to do directly, and that, as to the increased amount of salary, the second contract was void.</p> <p>4. It is competent for school directors to agree to pay teachers what, in their opinion, their services are reasonably worth, but it is not competent for them to go beyond that, and include in such compensation an additional sum to compensate for something else for which the law does not allow compensation from the school fund.</p>