The state plans to appeal a Circuit Court decision awarding about 9,000 substitute teachers back pay that could amount to $15 million — or about $30 for every day between Nov. 1, 2000, and June 30, 2005.

Attorney General Mark Bennett said he will ask Circuit Court Judge Karen Ahn for permission to immediately appeal her order that the state breached a contract with the teachers and therefore underpaid them.

In a press statement, Bennett indicated the decision was reached after consulting with the schools superintendent and the Board of Education, and reviewing the case.

"We are in agreement that the legal issue decided by Judge Ahn ought to be reviewed by the State Supreme Court as expeditiously as possible," said Bennett in a statement.

"It would be imprudent to pay a large amount of taxpayer money without a definitive decision by the Supreme Court."

Ahn ruled in December and in April that the state had failed to pay the teachers by a formula set in 1996 that tied them to what regular certified and licensed teachers earned. By that formula this would be roughly 73 percent of a regular teacher's salary.

But the state had argued that they were paying teachers appropriately, as tied to a Class 2 teacher's salary.

But a Class 2 teacher had been redefined by the Department of Education after 1996.

The state public schools employ about 1,000 substitute teachers every day.

Paul Alston, attorney for the teachers in their class-action suit, had been expecting the appeal. In a recent press conference at the state Capitol, he and representatives of the substitute teachers asked the Department of Education to show good faith by paying the teachers and moving forward. One substitute expressed concern that if the case dragged on the state would begin to lose substitutes.