POULSBO — The North Kitsap School District has upset several students, parents and teachers by its refusal to consider a popular French teacher for rehire next year.

Keith Johnson, a French teacher at North Kitsap High School, retired nearly a decade ago but has been rehired each year for the last nine years under the district’s retire-rehire policy. The policy allows retired teachers to be considered for open positions along with other candidates. Retire-rehire teachers draw a portion of their retirement pay as well as their teaching salary, and are limited to working 1,500 hours per year. They must re-apply for their jobs each year. In late April, Johnson applied to be rehired for the 2010-11 school year but was denied an interview.

“I was stunned,” Johnson, who has worked for the district for 40 years, said Friday. “I felt that there was every reason that I be accepted for an interview.”

Dozens of students, teachers and parents packed Thursday’s North Kitsap School Board meeting to protest the district’s decision regarding Johnson.

“I’m not saying, ‘We need to hire Mr. Johnson.’ They need to give him an interview,” said North Kitsap High senior Eric Frei.

The district’s human resources director, Chris Willits, said the district’s policy for the last three years has been to only rehire retired teachers if there are no other qualified candidates in the application pool. He said the district believes such a policy is in compliance with the “spirit” of the state’s retire-rehire law, which was originally enacted to make up for a teacher shortage three decades ago.

“Our school board believes, as I do, that the spirit of this law is not to have administrators or teachers retire and then step back into those positions and fill them indefinitely,” Willits said. “We believe the intent of this law is to meet an emergency need and be used as a stop-gap.”

Willits added that, although he and many district administrators regard Johnson as a “great teacher,” he believes the intent of the retire-rehire law should be followed and other qualified applicants should be considered first. He said the district wants to be careful to comply with the state’s laws, and allow enough qualified teachers to apply for the positions held by retire-rehire teachers.

“We could be audited by the state, and a focus of the audit could be retire-rehire employees, and they could ask to see the justification for hiring retired employees,” Willits said.

Willits also said rehiring Johnson would not cost the district more money than it would to hire a new teacher, but it would cost the state more.

“That’s a misconception people have,” Willits said. “The district doesn’t pay more for teachers based on their experience. But the state does.”

Frei and several others signed up to speak to the board regarding Johnson during the public comment portion of Thursday’s meeting. North Kitsap High Spanish teacher Laura Lopez spoke first, but was told by board President Tom Anderson that the public meeting was not an appropriate venue for discussing specific personnel matters.

Frei spoke next, from the back of the room, saying he wanted to follow the board’s policies and speak in general about teachers in the district. He alluded to Johnson, but did not mention him by name. Anderson refused to allow Frei to continue, and asked him to leave.

“I was extremely appalled and extremely disappointed by the way they acted,” Frei said of the board after the meeting. “I was willing to make any accommodations to them. They already made up their minds and didn’t want to hear opposing views.”

Parents and other audience members began to speak up on behalf of Frei and the other students.

“Let the students speak,” one audience member said.

District Superintendent Rick Jones told the audience the district is not doing anything wrong by refusing to grant Johnson an interview.

“We’re doing the best we can with our policies, and we’re following them,” Jones said.

Jones visited the high school Friday and talked with several of the students who attended Thursday’s meeting, to clarify the district’s reasons for not interviewing Johnson.

Anderson did not allow any further comments from the crowd regarding Johnson Thursday.

Outside the district’s offices after the meeting, students used their cars as a picket line. Several of them wrote on their windows comments such as, “Do you believe in the first amendment? Let us speak!” and “Save Mr. Johnson.”

The students parked their cars in front of the building’s exit to ensure they were seen.

Johnson was not present at the meeting, but appreciated the support from his students.

“There’s some pretty close ties that develop,” he said. “And I think some of that showed up at the board meeting.”