An Administrator's Guide to California Private School Law

Chapter 3 – Hiring

a. Education Requirements Minimum educational requirements must be directly related to the successful performance of the job. 86 Courts tend to reject such requirements for positions where educational requirements are unnecessary or less educated workers can also successfully perform the position. 87 This is particularly true in positions involving little risk to public safety. 88 On the other hand, courts are more flexible in upholding minimum educational requirements for highly-skilled or professional positions. 89 In an informal opinion letter regarding high school diplomas as a job requirement, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) stated:

“...if an employer adopts a high school diploma requirement for a job, and that requirement ‘screens out’ an individual who is unable to graduate because of a learning disability that meets the ADA’s definition of ‘disability,’ the employer may not apply the standard unless it can demonstrate that the diploma requirement is job related and consistent with business necessity. The employer will not be able to make this showing, for example, if the functions in question can easily be performed by someone who does not have a diploma.” 90

b. Physical Requirements Physical requirements, e.g. the ability to lift a certain amount of weight, are allowed if they are job-related and consistent with business necessity. 91 Before a school may utilize a physical requirement which is “job-related” and “consistent with business necessity” to screen out a disabled applicant, it must first consider whether the disabled applicant could perform the job with a reasonable accommodation. 92 The school must make an individualized assessment of each applicant’s abilities and determine if any disabilities require accommodation. If so, a decision must be made whether the school can provide a reasonable accommodation. 93 Reasonably accommodating an applicant does not require the school to lower its qualification standards for a particular job, so long as those standards are uniformly applied to all applicants.

A PPLICATIONS

Section 3

A. E STABLISH A U NIFORM S CREENING P ROCESS T O R EVIEW A PPLICANTS “Screening” refers to the practice of reviewing applications before the interview to eliminate from further consideration any candidates who either do not meet minimum job qualifications or who are manifestly not competitive in light of the quality and experience of other members of the applicant pool. As a general matter, “screening” is lawful if it is conducted in a neutral manner

An Administrator’s Guide to California Private School Law ©2019 Liebert Cassidy Whitmore 49