A Superior Court judge says the Exeter-West Greenwich School Committee has the sole right — and the obligation — to set policies essential to its educational mission, even though it negotiated away that role two decades ago.

At issue before Judge Bennett R. Gallo was the School Committee’s failure to seek the teachers union’s approval before creating a new department of fine arts, responsible for art and music instruction for grades 7-12.

The Exeter-West Greenwich Education Association, asserting that the unilateral move violated a provision of the teachers contract, took the dispute to arbitration. In March, an arbitrator agreed that the committee and the school district’s administration had overstepped by creating the department, and ordered that the department be dismantled at the end of the 2007-2008 school year.

Gallo, in a recent ruling, threw out the arbitration award, saying that no contract can give a union — or an arbitrator — veto power over actions of a school district that relate directly to the “essence of the educational mission.” A contract provision that does so is unenforceable because it represents an unlawful delegation of a school committee’s duties under state law, he wrote.

Vincent F. Ragosta, lawyer for the School Committee, said he was “gratified that the court recognized that the union was holding the school district hostage.” He said he believes the case sets a precedent.

“It’s the first case I’m aware of in Rhode Island that deals with school department governance. It is setting limits,” Ragosta said. “It’s really saying, anything that has to do with the structure of the schools… with the delivery of education programs, may not be bargained away by a school committee, and certainly it can not be vetoed by a union or arbitrator.”

John Leidecker, assistant executive director of the union’s parent organization, National Education Association Rhode Island, disagreed that the case is any kind of precedent, adding that there are a few other cases that deal with statutory powers and responsibilities of school committees.

In his ruling, Gallo cited an earlier case — one that reached the state Supreme Court earlier this year –– involving a North Providence School Committee decision to eliminate a composition period for the high school’s English department. The North Providence Federation of Teachers successfully challenged the committee’s right to take such action.

It could be argued, the high court wrote, that a decision involving whether to have a composition period for English teachers relates to the essence of the district’s educational mission and, therefore, is not subject to negotiation or arbitration. But, the Supreme Court said, the North Providence School Committee did not justify its action by saying it was to improve education. Instead, the committee explained its decision as a financial one.

Because the committee linked its decision to cost-cutting rather than to the improvement of education, the dispute was properly subject to arbitration, the court concluded.

Gallo said the high court in the North Providence contract dispute made it clear that the “motivations” behind a school committee’s decision must be considered when similar issues came before the courts.

In the Exeter-West Greenwich case, Gallo wrote, the union strongly concurred with the School Committee that creating a fine arts department was an educationally sound move. Because the committee and district administrators were motivated by the desire to improve education, the action fell into the realm of a “nondelegable” and “nonarbitrable” obligation.

Leidecker said that this is the first time in at least 20 years that the contract provision has been tested, but he said Gallo’s decision didn’t surprise him or the union. Still, he stands by the union’s decision to go to arbitration.

“The School Committee violated the contract,” Leidecker said. “The contract said, ‘If the School Committee … is going to combine the departments, they need the agreement of the union.”

The clause in the bargaining agreement says: “When there are four or more full-time equivalent members teaching in a subject matter area, a department head will be hired for that area. Both parties must agree in order to combine a department.”

Neither Leidecker nor Ragosta could say specifically why the school board in office at the time agreed to the clause.

Ragosta speculated that interpretations of state laws governing education and collective bargaining have changed over the past 20 years as to what could be bargained in a labor contract and what cannot.

“They didn’t contemplate what they [were] bargaining away,” Ragosta said.

Leidecker said that years ago, the district did not have a regional high school and perhaps “the question was not clear what would happen if we combined.”

It’s not likely, he said, that the union would appeal this decision.

“The union is not sweating it,” he said.

lsparks@projo.com