WOODS v. BARNES (Two Cases)

Rebecca Barnes taught in the Fannin County School System for years and, under Georgia's Fair Dismissal Act, earned job protections that normally require notice and a hearing before a teacher can be demoted or not renewed. In 2015 the Fannin County system converted into a charter system, and in 2017 Barnes's contract was not renewed without the notice or hearing the Act would otherwise require. She and the Georgia Association of Educators sued state and local officials, arguing that the 2007 Charter Systems Act, which let charter systems skip Title 20 rules like the Fair Dismissal Act, unconstitutionally stripped away rights Barnes had already earned, violating the Georgia Constitution's ban on retroactive laws and laws that impair contracts. A Fulton County trial court agreed and ordered Barnes reinstated. The Supreme Court of Georgia reversed, holding that any limits on teachers' Fair Dismissal Act rights traced back to the original 1993 Charter Schools Act, which had already exempted charter schools from those protections, not to the 2007 law the teachers were challenging. Because teachers who earned rights after 1993 never had unqualified protections against charter schools, the 2007 law did not take anything away from them.

The court held that because the 1993 Charter Schools Act already exempted charter schools from Fair Dismissal Act protections, and the 2007 Charter Systems Act did not materially change that exemption, the 2007 law did not impair any vested rights of teachers who earned Fair Dismissal Act protections after 1993, so the Impairment Clause claims fail as a matter of law.

The ruling means teachers in Georgia's growing number of charter school systems, including those in Fannin County, cannot rely on rights earned under the Fair Dismissal Act to fight demotions or nonrenewals once their district becomes a charter system, reinforcing charter systems' broad exemption from Title 20 employment rules.

Judgment reversed

1. The court explained that Georgia's Impairment Clause, which bars retroactive laws and laws impairing contracts, requires a plaintiff to show a vested right that was injuriously affected by the challenged law.
2. Reading the Fair Dismissal Act's job protections for teachers in their historical context, the court found that when the General Assembly created charter schools in the 1993 Charter Schools Act, it exempted those schools from Title 20 rules, including the Fair Dismissal Act's protections, meaning teachers hired after 1993 could earn only limited rights not enforceable against charter schools.
3. The court traced later versions of the charter school laws, including the 1998 Charter Schools Act and the 2007 Charter Systems Act (which allowed whole school systems, not just individual schools, to convert to charter status), and found none of them materially changed the scope of the Title 20 waiver first granted in 1993.
4. Because the 2007 Charter Systems Act simply extended the same pre-existing waiver to charter systems rather than creating a new limitation, the court concluded it could not be the law that impaired any rights, even assuming the teachers' rights would otherwise have been enforceable.
5. The court rejected the teachers' argument that a system-wide waiver under the 2007 Act was different in kind from a school-by-school waiver, finding no support for the claim that teachers ever had a right to work in a district containing at least one non-charter school.
6. Because the teachers' claims depended on blaming the 2007 law rather than the 1993 law for any loss of rights, and the record did not involve teachers who earned rights before 1993, the court held the constitutional claims failed as a matter of law without deciding broader questions about the 1993 or 1998 laws.

• Fair Dismissal Act
• charter schools
• teacher tenure rights
• Impairment Clause
• Fannin County School System