Whistleblower Act—Grievance Procedure—Public School Teachers

Whistleblower Act—Grievance Procedure—Public School Teachers—Whitney v. El Paso Independent School District, ___ S.W.3d ___, 2017 WL 3614149 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2017)—The Whistleblower Act provides that an employee whistleblower must file a grievance with an employer agency before filing a lawsuit under the Act. The termination appeal process set out in the Education Code serves as a school district’s grievance procedure for this purpose. Therefore, the teacher’s attempt in this case to file a grievance outside that procedure, and her failure to pursue her statutory rights to a district termination hearing, barred her subsequent Whistleblower Act lawsuit.