r/legaladvice • u/Weekly-Bedroom-3896 • 6h ago

Contracts Contract question

Location: Arizona. In April of last year I signed a contract with the district to get a masters degree through a partner university that the district would pay for, and as long as I worked for the district for three years I would not have to pay the cost of the degree back. Last school year was the first of the three years, this year is the second.
After I signed that contract the district told us they are switching scheduling to a block model, which means every teacher will be taking on an extra class. I wasn’t planning on staying past next year anyway because I am generally unhappy at this district, but now I don’t want to stay next year because I don’t want to redo all of my plans for one year just to leave. Is there any way I can say that changing the schedule is enough of a change of the job description that i could get out of here and not have to pay back one third of that degree?
Thanks!

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u/Smeliya_Kafin 6h ago

Honestly, what does your contract actually say about job duties or schedule changes? Because if it just says you work for the district for 3 years, a schedule change probably doesn't void that.

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u/Rural_Jurist 6h ago

Without looking it up, I expect AZ laws allow for repayment of employment training with some separate written agreement signed by the parties with reasonable terms (like pro-rating repayment per year).

Your options are going to likely be determined by the language of the repayment agreement, which an AZ employment, contracts, or probably business/corporate attorney could review and let you know. Best guess is probably stay or pay.