WOODS v. BARNES
Annotate this CaseIn Georgia, the Fair Dismissal Act (FDA) offers certain protections to public school teachers after they have fulfilled a contract for the fourth consecutive school year with the same local board of education. This case considered whether the Charter Schools Act's waiver provision, which relieves public charter schools from complying with Title 20 (including the FDA), impairs the vested rights of teachers who had earned FDA protections before their school converted to a charter system. The Supreme Court of Georgia decided that the teachers' constitutional claims failed as a matter of law. The justices reasoned that the 1993 Charter Schools Act had already clarified that the FDA did not afford teachers any rights enforceable against charter schools. Therefore, the Charter Systems Act's retention of an FDA exemption for charter schools did not impair any rights for teachers who earned FDA rights after the 1993 Charter Schools Act was enacted.
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