Teacher's Unilateral Reduction of Hours Justifies Employer's Non-Renewal

A part-time teacher, employed under an agreement requiring mutual agreement on teaching hours before each school year, submitted her preferred schedule and a range of 15 to 18 hours by the specified deadline; however, approximately five weeks after the deadline, she informed the private school that she needed to reduce her commitment to about ten hours due to other employment, prompting the employer to decline engaging her for the new, substantially lower hour commitment for the upcoming year. The court reasoned that by unilaterally revoking her initial offer and submitting a significantly reduced, later offer, the teacher demonstrated a contractual understanding that she was free to determine her offered hours, which necessarily meant the employer was equally free to accept or reject that revised offer in good faith, thus upholding the employer's right not to employ her under the newly proposed reduced schedule.