Contractual Grievance Noncompliance Waives Arbitration; Separate Director Contracts Are Extracurricular and Outside Teacher Nonrenewal Protections

I. Introduction

David Christianson, a teacher in the Grand Forks Public School District, held (1) a teacher contract and (2) two additional “director contracts” during the 2023–24 school year: Pep Band Director and Music–Instrumental Head Director. After pranks occurred at graduation practice and the ceremony under his supervision, the District reprimanded him, reassigned him, and did not renew the director contracts.

Christianson pursued a multi-level grievance process through a level-four School Board hearing. Although the Board orally denied his appeal at the hearing, the grievance policy required a written decision by August 7, 2024. The written decision issued two days late, after Christianson objected.

In district court Christianson claimed the District failed to follow required nonrenewal procedures (seeking damages). The District responded that Christianson could not sue because he failed to arbitrate, which the District claimed the grievance process required. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court concluded (a) the District waived reliance on arbitration by failing to meet contractual notice/timeline requirements, but (b) Christianson’s director contracts were extracurricular and therefore not subject to statutory teacher nonrenewal procedures. The Supreme Court affirmed.

II. Summary of the Opinion

• Summary judgment standard and contract interpretation: The Court reviewed summary judgment de novo and treated interpretation of the teacher-related contracts as a question of law when unambiguous.
• Arbitration/exhaustion issue: The Court affirmed that the District’s failure to timely provide the required written grievance decision violated the negotiated agreement and supported a legal finding of waiver of the District’s ability to require arbitration.
• Nonrenewal protections issue: The Court affirmed that the two director contracts were extracurricular because they were separate agreements with separate duties and compensation, not integrated into the base teacher contract. Consequently, N.D.C.C. ch. 15.1-15 nonrenewal procedures were not required for nonrenewal of those director contracts.

III. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

1) Standards of review and summary judgment framework

• McMahon v. Sanford (citing Krebsbach v. Trinity Hosps., Inc.): The Court relied on these authorities for the familiar de novo summary judgment framework—no genuine dispute of material fact and entitlement to judgment as a matter of law. This mattered because both the waiver question (given undisputed chronology) and the curricular/extracurricular classification (given the contract documents) could be resolved as legal questions.

2) Contract interpretation in education employment disputes

• Williston Educ. Ass'n v. Williston Pub. Sch. Dist. No. 1 and Melaas v. Diamond Resorts U.S. Collection Dev., LLC: These cases anchored the Court’s approach that teacher contracts are interpreted using ordinary contract principles; interpretation is a question of law; and unambiguous language controls. This set the stage for treating the director contracts “on their face” as separate and extracurricular.

3) “Substantial compliance” distinguished (policy vs. contract)

• Stensrud v. Mayville State Coll.: The District urged a “substantial compliance” approach, pointing to Stensrud’s acceptance of oral notice as substantial compliance with written notice requirements. The Court rejected the analogy because Stensrud involved compliance with the Board of Higher Education policy manual—an exercise of statutory governance authority—rather than a negotiated contract term.
• Cuozzo v. State and Retzlaff v. Grand Forks Pub. Sch. Dist. No. 1: The Court cited these to illustrate the difference between “substantial compliance” analysis in contexts involving board policies or statutory teacher-termination procedures. The key move was categorical: where the obligation arises from a negotiated agreement, the analysis is contractual performance/waiver—not the more forgiving administrative “substantial compliance” lens.

4) Waiver and factual questions becoming legal questions

• Pfeifle v. Tanabe: Waiver is generally a question of fact. The Court invoked this baseline before explaining why waiver could be resolved as a matter of law here.
• Pegg v. Kohn (citing Abelmann v. Smartlease USA, L.L.C.): Substantial performance is usually a fact question, relevant to the District’s argument that its conduct should be deemed adequate despite the late written decision.
• Grengs v. Grengs (citing First Nat. Acceptance Co. v. Bishop and Ross v. Texas One P'ship): These authorities supported the Court’s pivot: when material facts are undisputed, issues that are typically factual (waiver/substantial performance) can become questions of law. The Court then treated the timing and delivery facts as undisputed and affirmed the district court’s legal conclusion of waiver.

5) Teacher nonrenewal protections and the curricular/extracurricular line

• Quarles v. McKenzie Pub. Sch. Dist. No. 34: This is the doctrinal foundation. Nonrenewal protections for teachers do not strip boards of authority to adjust extracurricular duties, but if adjustments cause a “severe reduction in salary for curricular activities,” statutory nonrenewal procedures are triggered. The Court framed the “threshold question” in Christianson’s case as whether the director contracts were curricular or extracurricular.
• Coles v. Glenburn Pub. Sch. Dist. No. 26: Christianson relied on Coles to argue his director duties were “intertwined” with teaching and thus curricular. The Court used Coles to clarify what “intertwined” means in this area: a contractual nexus showing the district treated the additional role as part of the teaching load/base salary. In Coles, the district reduced base teaching salary when removing the athletic director role, evidencing it was part of curricular duties. That contractual integration was absent here.
• Wenman v. Ctr. Bd. of Valley City Multi-Dist. Vocational Ctr.: Christianson cited Wenman for its emphasis on the teacher’s perspective and the “severity” of salary reduction. The Court distinguished it because in Wenman the contracts were undisputedly curricular; the only question was whether the salary reduction was “severe” enough. Here, by contrast, the Court resolved the antecedent classification question against Christianson: the director contracts were extracurricular and their nonrenewal did not reduce salary under the base teaching contract.

B. Legal Reasoning

1) Waiver of arbitration by breach of the contractual grievance procedure

The grievance policy stated that if the teacher and school board are unable to resolve a grievance, the grievance may be submitted to arbitration. Christianson did not arbitrate; the District argued this failure barred suit (failure to exhaust contractual remedies).

The district court—and the Supreme Court—focused on a different sequence: the District itself did not perform a key contractual obligation in the grievance process, namely the timely issuance of the written level-four decision. The Supreme Court treated the written-decision deadline as a substantive contractual requirement, not a “courtesy,” and agreed that the District’s late performance—especially after Christianson’s formal objection—supported the conclusion that the District waived the ability to insist on arbitration as a prerequisite.

The Court also made an important methodological clarification. The District urged “substantial compliance” (verbal notice should suffice). The Court rejected importing that doctrine from Stensrud v. Mayville State Coll., because Christianson’s grievance timelines were not merely internal policy; they were negotiated and contractually locked in (“shall not be changed without mutual agreement”). Thus the analysis was grounded in contract performance/waiver rather than flexible administrative compliance.

2) Why the director contracts were extracurricular (and why that matters)

North Dakota’s teacher continuing contract statutes (N.D.C.C. ch. 15.1-15) impose procedures when curricular contracts are not renewed. Under Quarles v. McKenzie Pub. Sch. Dist. No. 34, nonrenewal procedures are not automatically triggered by changes to extracurricular duties, unless the adjustment causes a severe reduction in salary for curricular activities.

The Court treated the “curricular vs. extracurricular” determination as primarily contractual and structural:

• The teacher contract was signed June 16, 2023.
• The director contracts were signed later (September 11, 2023) and stood alone.
• The teacher contract did not require offering or accepting director positions.
• The teacher contract’s compensation did not depend on the director roles; each director contract carried its own duties and compensation.

From these undisputed features, the Court concluded “on their face” the director contracts were separate and extracurricular. That finding defeated Christianson’s statutory nonrenewal theory because the loss of the director stipends did not alter the base teacher contract or reduce salary “for curricular activities.”

3) Reframing “intertwined” after Coles

Christianson argued the district court itself acknowledged that music directing and teaching music are “intertwined,” and that Coles v. Glenburn Pub. Sch. Dist. No. 26 therefore required treating his director duties as curricular.

The Supreme Court narrowed “intertwined” to its legally operative meaning in Coles: integration of the additional role into the teaching load/base salary such that removing the role changes the teacher’s base contract. In Coles, the district reduced base teaching salary when removing the athletic director position—strong evidence the district treated it as curricular. Here, the Court found “no connections” between duties/compensation in the teaching contract and in the director contracts, and noted the “lack of additional teaching duties during the school day” as consistent with an extracurricular classification.

4) Why Wenman did not move the needle

Wenman v. Ctr. Bd. of Valley City Multi-Dist. Vocational Ctr. emphasized that severity of salary reduction is assessed from the teacher’s perspective and held a four percent reduction could be “severe.” The Supreme Court treated that analysis as downstream from a premise not contested in Wenman: that the reduced contract was curricular. In Christianson’s case, because the director contracts were classified as extracurricular and did not reduce salary under the teaching contract, the “severity” inquiry from Wenman was not controlling.

C. Impact

1) Contractual grievance procedures: deadlines can have real teeth

A practical consequence of the decision is that school districts (and other public employers operating under negotiated grievance procedures) face heightened risk when they treat contractual deadlines—especially written-decision requirements—as flexible. Even a short delay (two days) mattered here because it was a missed contractual deadline in a negotiated agreement and occurred after an objection. The precedent supports an argument that an employer that does not follow the grievance procedure it negotiated may lose the ability to enforce downstream procedural defenses like arbitration/exhaustion.

2) Cleaner separation between teacher base contracts and “extra duty” contracts

For districts, the case confirms that separate “extra duty” agreements (separate signing, separate pay, separate scope) will generally be treated as extracurricular and outside the statutory nonrenewal regime—so long as the district does not embed those duties into the teacher’s base teaching load or base salary structure. For teachers and associations, the decision signals that if they want statutory-type protection for add-on roles, the contractual architecture (integration into base load or compensation) is likely more important than functional overlap with classroom subject matter.

3) Litigation framing in future disputes

Expect future cases to focus on:

• Evidence of contractual nexus (e.g., whether the base salary changes when the extra duty is removed; whether the duty is counted in the “teaching load”).
• Textual obligations in grievance policies (whether “shall” deadlines and written-decision requirements are negotiated terms and therefore enforceable as contract conditions).
• Waiver arguments where one party seeks to enforce arbitration/exhaustion after missing its own contractual steps.

IV. Complex Concepts Simplified

V. Conclusion

Christianson v. Grand Forks Public School District delivers two clarifications with immediate practical effect in North Dakota education employment disputes. First, negotiated grievance procedures—especially written-decision deadlines—are enforceable contractual requirements, and a district’s failure to comply can waive its ability to insist on arbitration/exhaustion defenses. Second, separately executed and separately compensated director-stipend agreements are properly treated as extracurricular when they are not integrated into the teacher’s base contract, leaving their nonrenewal outside the statutory nonrenewal procedures of N.D.C.C. ch. 15.1-15.