Battaglia v. Lakeland School District;

Mussari v. Lakeland School District,

677 A.2d 1294 (1996)

 Nancy Battaglia, certified secondary teacher, and Patricia Mussari, certified school nurse, were respectively demoted from full-time to part-time status in the Lakeland School district based on declining enrollment traced from the 1981-1982 to the 1990-1991 school year.  Battaglia and Mussari appealed to the Secretary of Education who approved the decision of the school board.  The Commonwealth Court found that the school board had been justified in using the selected time period to determine that an approximate twenty per cent decrease in enrollment had occurred in that time period and that the demotion of Battaglia to pert-time was justified but that the demotion of the full-time school nurse to half-time resulted in a violation of Section 14-1402 92.1 of the Public School Code which specified a maximum 1500 to 1 ratio of students to school nurse.
 
Citing Smith v. Board of School Directors of Harmony Area School District , 16 PA Cmwlth 175, 328 A.2d 883 (1974) and School District of Philadelphia v. Twer, 498 PA Cmwlth 429, 447 A.2d 222 ( 1982) as precedents for using a ten-year period to determine declining enrollment, the Commonwealth Court upheld the Lkeland School Districtís decision to demote Battaglia from full-time to part-time under the provision of Section 11-1124 of the PA School Code.  The court reversed the decision to demote Mussari from full-time to part-time nurse, however, on the basis of violation of PA School Code Section 14-1402 (2.1) permitting no greater than a 1500 to 1 student-to-nurse ratio.

Written by Beth Schulze and Mary Beth Kibbe