## Facts

- Joyce Jacobs worked as a school bus driver for Fremont RE-1 School District as “classified personnel.”
- The school district’s board adopted and published an employee handbook addressing discipline and dismissal of classified employees.
- The handbook stated the board delegated dismissal authority to the superintendent, who could further delegate it to the director of business services and/or director of personnel.
- The handbook also stated classified employees were employed for as long as the district needed or desired their services, with employment duration unspecified and resting in the board’s discretion.
- The handbook contained detailed employee conduct rules and provided for discipline, including discharge, for violations.
- In February 1983, Norman R. Lemons (director of business services) discharged Jacobs after a workplace disagreement.
- Jacobs sued, alleging her discharge was unlawful because the board could not delegate its discharge authority and had not itself acted to discharge her.

## Issues

1. May a local school board delegate to administrative officers the authority to discharge classified employees such as bus drivers?
2. If delegation is permitted, did the board’s policy and handbook provide sufficiently definite standards to guide the delegated discharge authority as a matter of law?

## Decision

- The Colorado Supreme Court held that discharging classified employees is an administrative/ministerial function that a school board may delegate to appropriate administrators.
- The Court held the board’s delegation was accompanied by adequate standards, based on the handbook’s dismissal policy read together with the detailed conduct and disciplinary rules.
- The Court affirmed the portion of the court of appeals’ judgment recognizing delegability, reversed the portion requiring further proceedings on standards, and reinstated summary judgment for the school district and Lemons.

## Legal Principles

- A school board may delegate administrative or ministerial functions to agents when the delegation is guided by adequate standards.
- Powers that are legislative or judicial in character, or that require special board judgment and are constrained by statute, are generally nondelegable absent express legislative authorization.
- Whether delegation standards are adequate can be resolved as a legal question when the written policies and rules provide sufficient guidance on their face.
- Where classified employment is expressly terminable at the district’s discretion, and no constitutional or statutory violation is shown, courts generally do not review the merits of the termination decision itself.

## Conclusion

The Colorado Supreme Court upheld a school board’s delegation of authority to discharge a classified employee because the discharge function was administrative and the employee handbook’s conduct and disciplinary provisions supplied adequate standards, making summary judgment for the district proper.


Fremont RE-1 Sch. Dist. v. Jacobs, 737 P.2d 816 (Colo. 1987)