For educators, few areas of education law generate as much confusion — or as much anxiety — as teacher employment rights in Colorado. In our practice, we have heard from newer educators a belief that they have “tenure.” Conversely, administrators often believe a struggling teacher can simply be let go. Both are wrong, and the reason is a statute most people outside of school district offices have never read: the Teacher Employment, Compensation, and Dismissal Act of 1990, known as TECDA, codified at C.R.S. §§ 22-63-101 to -403. Whether you are a teacher facing dismissal charges or an administrator trying to navigate a difficult personnel decision, TECDA sets the rules — and its deadlines are short and unforgiving.
What TECDA Is (and What It Replaced)
Put simply, TECDA governs the employment, compensation, transfer, and dismissal of public school teachers in Colorado. It replaced the Teacher Employment, Dismissal, and Tenure Act of 1967, and the change in name was no accident. The 1967 law granted true “tenure”: after three years, a teacher was statutorily “entitled to a position of employment as a teacher.” When the General Assembly enacted TECDA in 1990, it deliberately stripped out virtually all tenure language. As the Colorado Supreme Court has observed, the word “tenure” appears in TECDA exactly once — and not in connection with any job protection.
In place of tenure, TECDA created a two-tier system: probationary and nonprobationary teachers. The distinction drives nearly everything about a Colorado teacher’s employment rights.
To Whom Does TECDA Apply?
TECDA’s coverage turns on a definition worth reading closely, because it is functional rather than title-based. Under C.R.S. § 22-63-103(11), a “teacher” is “any person who holds a teacher’s license issued pursuant to the provisions of article 60.5 of this title and who is employed to instruct, direct, or supervise the instructional program.” The statute excludes only two groups: people working under an authorization rather than a license, and the chief administrative officer of the district — the superintendent.
So the protections reach classroom teachers, and they also reach licensed staff whose work is to direct or supervise instruction, including building administrators such as principals. One limit is worth noting: TECDA protects continued employment as a teacher, not a particular assignment, so a district may generally reassign or reduce a position without triggering the dismissal procedures at all.
Charter school teachers stand on different ground. Colorado grants charter schools automatic waivers from TECDA’s dismissal grounds and procedures, along with its salary provisions, so most charter school educators are employed at will under their individual contracts and school policies rather than under the statute.
Probationary vs. Nonprobationary: The Heart of the Act
A probationary teacher is one in roughly the first three years of continuous employment with a district, working under a series of one-year contracts. A district may choose not to renew a probationary teacher’s contract for any reason the superintendent deems sufficient, so long as written notice of nonrenewal is delivered by June 1. The teacher may request the reasons in writing, but a probationary nonrenewal generally cannot be meaningfully challenged except in narrow circumstances — for example, where the real reason is unlawful discrimination or retaliation for protected activity.
Nonprobationary status must now be earned, not merely accrued. Since the 2010 educator effectiveness reforms (Senate Bill 10-191), a teacher achieves nonprobationary status only after three consecutive years of demonstrated effectiveness on performance evaluations — and can lose that status after two consecutive years of ineffective ratings. For nonprobationary teachers, the calculus changes entirely: the district cannot simply decline to renew the contract. It must instead pursue dismissal for cause, using the grounds and procedures the statute spells out.
Grounds and Procedure for Dismissing a Nonprobationary Teacher
Under C.R.S. § 22-63-301, a nonprobationary teacher may be dismissed only for enumerated reasons: physical or mental disability, incompetency, neglect of duty, immorality, unsatisfactory performance, insubordination, conviction of (or guilty plea, nolo contendere plea, or deferred sentence for) a felony, or “other good and just cause.” A teacher may not be dismissed for temporary illness, a board-approved leave of absence, or military leave.
The procedure in C.R.S. § 22-63-302 moves fast:
- The superintendent recommends dismissal to the school board, and the district must mail the teacher written notice — including the reasons, supporting exhibits, and witness lists — within three days of the board meeting.
- The teacher then has only five working days to file a written objection and request a hearing. Miss that window and the right to a hearing is almost always waived.
- The parties select an impartial hearing officer (or an administrative law judge), and a hearing is convened within roughly thirty days. The teacher may be represented by counsel, present witnesses, and cross-examine the district’s witnesses. The district bears the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence.
- The hearing officer issues written findings and a recommendation within twenty days of the hearing; the board then has twenty days to dismiss the teacher, retain the teacher, or impose a one-year probation. If the board dismisses despite a retention recommendation, it must make a conclusion of its own, with reasons grounded in the hearing officer’s factual findings.
- A dismissed teacher may seek judicial review in the Colorado Court of Appeals within twenty-one days, though the court asks only whether the board acted arbitrarily, capriciously, or contrary to law — a deferential standard that makes the hearing itself the main event.
What the Colorado Supreme Court Has Said: No Tenure, No Contract
Anyone tempted to treat nonprobationary status as ironclad job security should read the Colorado Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in School District No. 1 v. Masters, 2018 CO 18. After Senate Bill 10-191 introduced “mutual consent” placement — meaning no school can be forced to accept a transferred teacher — Denver Public Schools placed hundreds of displaced nonprobationary teachers on unpaid leave when they could not secure a position within twelve months or two hiring cycles. The teachers sued, arguing that TECDA created a contractual right to continued employment and that unpaid leave without a hearing violated due process.
The supreme court rejected both arguments. It held that TECDA — precisely because the legislature removed the tenure and entitlement language of the 1967 act — created no contractual relationship and vested no property interest in salary and benefits for teachers placed on unpaid leave. In the companion case, Johnson v. School District No. 1, 2018 CO 17, the court reached the same conclusion. The lesson cuts in both directions: nonprobationary teachers have real and enforceable procedural protections when a district seeks to dismiss them, but those protections are statutory, not contractual — and what the legislature grants, the legislature can change.
Why Legal Representation for Teachers Matters
For teachers, the value of early legal advice is mostly about time and strategy. The five-working-day window to request a hearing is one of the shortest deadlines in Colorado employment law, and it starts running when the dismissal notice arrives. An attorney can preserve the hearing right, evaluate whether the district’s stated grounds hold up, marshal evaluations and witnesses within the compressed hearing schedule, negotiate a resignation or settlement where that better serves the teacher’s license and career, and spot related claims — discrimination, retaliation, licensure implications — that the TECDA process alone will not address.
A note for union members: before hiring private counsel, teachers who belong to the Colorado Education Association and its local affiliates should contact their association representative or local president. CEA’s staff attorneys handle dismissal actions, nonrenewals, layoffs, licensing matters, and unemployment hearings for active members, and that representation comes at no additional cost. Two limits are worth understanding. Coverage generally requires that membership predate the problem, so joining after charges arrive rarely helps. And the association decides which matters it will take and how far it will pursue them — a teacher who wants to raise claims outside the TECDA process, negotiate a settlement structured around protecting her license, or appeal a decision the association declines to appeal may need her own attorney. Educators who are not union members, including most charter school teachers and school administrators, will not have this option at all.
Teacher and administrator dismissal cases are high stakes for everyone involved: a career and reputation on one side, a school community and significant public resources on the other. In a process this fast-moving and this technical, experienced education law counsel is not a luxury — it is often the difference between a defensible outcome and an avoidable one. If you are teacher or administrator who has been dismissed and believe you are covered by TECDA, please reach out to your CEA union rep or Brown Education Law quickly for a free initial consultation.
