SYLLABUS

(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that, in the interests of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized).

Sopharie Leang, et al. v. Jersey City Board of Education, et al. (A-21/22-08)

Argued January 5, 2009 -- Decided April 16, 2009

HOENS, J., writing for a unanimous Court.

This appeal stands at the intersection between the rights of a school employee who, it is alleged, uttered words that threatened the safety of the children then in her care, and the obligations of other school employees who claim to have heard those words or who, when advised of them, exercised what they believed was their authority to act to ensure the safety of those students.

Plaintiff Sopharie Leang was hired, pursuant to a one-year contract, by defendant Jersey City Board of Education, as a provisional teacher of English as a Second Language (ESL). At the time, defendant Charles T. Epps, Jr. was the Superintendent of Schools, defendant Angela Bruno was the principal of the school where Leang was assigned, and defendant Vladimir Ashworth was another ESL teacher.