Melissa Washington began teaching first grade at the Alta Loma School District’s Stork Elementary on August 2, 2019. She was told in her interview that she was filling a new position created by a last-minute jump in enrollment, and the principal later testified to the same thing. When she arrived to sign her contract, however, it classified her as a temporary employee who could be terminated at any time. The human resources director told her that was just part of the process and that she would be reclassified as probationary later.

That did not happen. In each of the next two years, the principal told her that, because of uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic, all returning temporary teachers would again receive only temporary contracts, with no exceptions. He apologized, and she was told she might even receive tenure the following year. Washington signed temporary contracts for the 2020–2021 and 2021–2022 school years. In March 2022, the District told her it would not offer her, or any of its temporary teachers, a contract for 2022–2023, citing lost pandemic-related funding and low enrollment. She applied for temporary positions the District advertised for the next year but was not hired.

In February 2023, Washington petitioned for a writ of mandate ordering the District to reinstate her as a permanent employee with an August 2, 2019 seniority date and to compensate her for lost pay and benefits. She argued she should have been classified as probationary for her first two years, which would have made her permanent by operation of law in her third.

The District defended the temporary classification on a single theory. It said Washington had been hired to fill in for two permanent teachers who shared one full-time position under a voluntary job-sharing arrangement, and that the job share was a grant of leave under Education Code § 44920. That section allows a district to hire a temporary teacher for up to a year when a certificated employee has been granted leave for a semester or year or is experiencing long-term illness.

The trial court found that Washington was not in fact hired to fill a vacancy created by the job share; she was hired because of increased enrollment. It nonetheless denied the petition. It agreed with the District that one of the job-sharing teachers was effectively on leave at any given time. Relying on District spreadsheets, it also found that the number of temporary teachers did not exceed the number of teachers on leave, counting job shares as leave. The court added that if it reached the issue, the District’s laches defense would be persuasive, because Washington waited until after her third year to sue.

In the published case of Washington v. Alta Loma School District, No. D088028 (October 2026). The Court of Appeal reversed and remanded with directions. The trial court must issue a writ of mandate ordering the District to reinstate Washington as a permanent employee with a seniority date of August 2, 2019. It must also hold further proceedings to determine her lost compensation. Washington recovers her costs on appeal.

The Court of Appeal began with the Education Code’s classification scheme. Certificated teachers fall into four categories: permanent, probationary, substitute, or temporary. Unless the Code specifically requires another classification, a teacher must be classified as probationary. That rule appears in Education Code § 44915 and was applied in Stockton Teachers Assn. CTA/NEA v. Stockton Unified School Dist. (2012) 204 Cal.App.4th 446. Under Balen v. Peralta Junior College Dist. (1974) 11 Cal.3d 821, the temporary and substitute classifications carry no statutory due process protections, so they must be strictly construed. Districts have no discretion to deviate from the statutory scheme.

Applying that strict construction, the court held for the first time that leave in § 44920 means a leave of absence, and that a voluntary job-sharing arrangement is not one. Because § 44920 does not define leave, the court read it together with related sections of the Education Code. Leaves of absence are addressed at length in the Code’s article on resignations, dismissals and leaves of absence. That article covers medical, parental, workers’ compensation, study, bereavement, and other leaves, but not job sharing. Reduced workloads instead fall under the separate employment article, where Education Code § 44922 lets districts allow teachers to reduce their workload from full-time to part-time.

The court found that the plain meaning of leave of absence points the same way. It implies a temporary absence with an intention to return to the same position. The District’s own collective bargaining agreement treats leaves of absence as holding the teacher’s place. Job-sharing teachers, by contrast, have no right to return to their prior position; they are restored to full-time work only if a position becomes available and no probationary or permanent teacher would be laid off. The court also rejected the District’s reliance on American Federation of Teachers v. Board of Education (1977) 77 Cal.App.3d 100. That case dealt with a teacher reassigned to a categorically funded program, not a job share. The Legislature later addressed that situation separately. And the American Federation court did not apply the strict construction Balen requires.

Because job shares do not count as leave, the trial court’s spreadsheet comparison also failed, since it treated job-share vacancies as leave. The appellate court therefore did not need to decide whether Washington was actually hired as the job-share placeholder.

The consequences followed directly from the Code. Washington defaulted to probationary status for her first two school years. The District never notified her by March 15 of her second year that she would not be reelected; instead, it rehired her. Under Education Code § 44929.21(b), she therefore became a permanent employee at the start of her third year. A permanent teacher can be dismissed only on statutory grounds and after an opportunity for a hearing, and the District followed none of those procedures. It thus had a clear, ministerial duty to reelect her for 2022–2023, which supports mandate relief and lost compensation under Code of Civil Procedure § 1095.