The Madison school district must pay wrongfully terminated teacher Joe Elliott $224,309 in back pay and $29,177 in interest, a three-judge federal appeals court panel ruled this week.
The ruling Monday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit upheld a District Court ruling in 2015 that Elliott should not have been laid off in 2012 when Madison Consolidated Schools had a reduction in force to save money because he had tenure. Teachers without tenure were retained in jobs that Elliott was qualified for, the lower court ruled.
The case centered on Indiana’s 2011 teacher accountability law, which went into effect in 2012. The new law amended the teacher tenure law, but the lower federal court ruled and the appeals court upheld that a teacher with tenure could not lose job protection under the new law. The new Indiana law violated Elliott’s contract under the contracts clause of the U.S. Constitution, the courts ruled.
Elliott, who could not be reached for comment today, had taught at Dupont Elementary School for 19 years and had recently been elected president of the Madison teachers union when he was let go. He had been tenured since 1998.
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