Other jurisdictions have held that automatic-renewal and similar tenure statutes are written into teacher's contracts by the law. Madison County Board of Education v. Wigley, 288 Ala. 202, 210, 259 So.2d 233, 239 (1972) ("Teacher Tenure statutes are to be read into all contracts entered into by the school boards, and teachers. . . ."); Carlson v. School District No. 6, 12 Ariz. App. 179, 182, 468 P.2d 944, 947 (1970); Maxey v. Jefferson County School District, 158 Colo. 583, 586, 408 P.2d 970, 971-72 (1965) ("Such a tenure act has the effect of a contract between teacher and district."); Board of Education v. Justice, 268 S.W.2d 648, 650 (Ky. 1954); Pearson v. Board of Education, 12 Ill. App.2d 70, 73, 138 N.E.2d 687, 689 (1956) ("The effect of the Teachers Tenure Law is to create a contract by operation of law."); Arburn v. Hunt, 207 Ind. 61, 62, 191 N.E. 148, 149 (1934) ("The entire [tenure] statute, with all its provisions, must be read into and considered a part of the contract."); Lindbergh School District v. Syrewicz, 516 S.W.2d 507, 512 (Mo.Ct.App. 1974) ("As we view the [teacher tenure] Act, its purpose is to establish strictly defined grounds and procedures for removing a permanent teacher which may not be evaded or other procedures substituted therefor.").
• 4 The precise role of the law of contracts in the context of the elaborate statutory scheme of the School Code has not been clearly defined. It has been said that the effect of the Code's teacher tenure provisions is to create a contract by operation of law, and that those provisions must be read into any written contract between a school board and tenured teachers. (See, e.g., Pearson v. Board of Education, 12 Ill. App.2d 70, 138 N.E.2d 687 (3d Dist. 1956).) A school board may not, through a collective bargaining agreement or otherwise, either delegate to another or limit the discretionary powers vested in it by statute.
Its object was to improve Illinois School System by assuring teachers of experience and ability continuous service and a rehiring based upon merit rather than failure to rehire upon reasons that are political, partisan or capricious." See also, Pickering v. Board of Education (1967), 36 Ill.2d 568, 577, 225 N.E.2d 1. The Courts have further held that the provisions of the School Code with respect to tenure create an automatic contract by operation of law between the school board and the tenured teacher, ( Donahoo v. Board of Education (1953), 413 Ill. 422, 427, 109 N.E.2d 787; Pearson v. Board of Education (3rd Dist., 1956), 12 Ill. App.2d 70, 73, 138 N.E.2d 687; Lester v. Board of Education School District No. 119 (2nd Dist., 1967), 87 Ill. App.2d 269, 280, 230 N.E.2d 893), and that where a tenured teacher does not enter into a specific written contract with the Board of Education that employed him for the previous school year, then he is deemed automatically to be under continued contractual service for the same terms and conditions and rate of pay that were set forth in his contract for the previous year, Donahoo v. Board of Education (1953), 413 Ill. 422, 427, 109 N.E.2d 787. • 5 The defendants have also contended on this appeal that the plaintiffs failed to show that a strike was in fact in progress.