Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 315223.cor.pdf

The parties to the CBA at issue in North Beach had "contracted to submit a large variety

of matters to grievance arbitration," with "grievance" broadly defined-so broadly

defined that it included the substance of the union's grievance, which was the district's

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No. 31522-3-111
Spokane Sch. Dist. No. 81 v. Spokane Educ. Ass'n

"'actions relating to Evaluation, Probation and Non-renewa1.'" Id. at 83-84 & n.6. In

North Beach, the union's grievance proceeded to arbitration, apparently without any

dispute that it belonged in arbitration given the breadth of the parties' agreement to

arbitrate.

Nonetheless, because Washington statutes delegated exclusive decision-making

power on renewal to a district's school board, the arbitrator was persuaded by the school

district that despite the breadth of the CBA arbitration provision, the arbitrator was

powerless to redress a teacher's grievance over her evaluation and nonrenewal. On

appeal, the court disagreed, holding that where the parties' arbitration agreement was

broad enough to include arbitration of nonrenewal and related matters, the only limitation

on the arbitrator's authority posed by Washington statutes was that the arbitrator could

not reinstate the employee to full contract status and thereby effectively countermand the

school board's decision.

Here, by contrast, we are dealing with a narrower arbitration clause--one that

explicitly excludes evaluation and nonrenewal. Rather than consider the impact of any

statute, we are engaged in an examination of what the parties agreed to arbitrate, what

they excluded from arbitration, and into which of those two categories the issues the