The St. Louis district is suing 32 teachers for breaking their contracts by leaving their jobs early.
Starting in 2015, the district required nontenured teachers to agree to pay $3,000, plus interest, if they left the district before their annual teaching contracts expired. The district says it costs that much to search for and hire a replacement teacher.
Emily Perez, the lawyer representing several of the teachers, said the contracts are not enforceable and suing to collect the $3,000 is unfair to the teachers because they faced stressful, toxic, and even unsafe work environments.
