In Oakdale Union School District v. Seaman (1972) 28 Cal.App.3d 77, the Court of Appeal reversed a judgment for a school district in an action for dismissal where a special education teacher requested a leave of absence to accompany her husband abroad to study foreign special education programs. The district never responded to her request, and she returned to school a month after the school year started. The Court of Appeal held that under the circumstances, the teacher's violation of the school's regulations were not "persistent." (Id. at p. 82.) In doing so, the Court of Appeal rejected as "specious" the district's argument that every day she was absent was a separate violation and demonstrated the "persistent" requirement of the statute: "This is not a case where it is reasonable to say that Mrs. Seaman's absence, by its very duration, amounted to a 'persistent' violation of the governing board's rules.Nor can it fairly be said from the evidence presented that the teacher was motivated by an attitude of continuous insubordination. Mrs. Seaman had been employed by the district for a period of eight years, and there is no evidence in the record to prove that she ever violated a school law or a regulation of the governing board prior to the incident in question; before leaving on her trip, appellant requested a leave of absence and gave sound academic reasons in support of the request; although the teacher left on her trip with knowledge that the motion to grant her request for a leave of absence had failed to pass for lack of a second, she reasonably could have assumed, as she testified, that the request had not been denied emphatically; appellant made a second request for a leave of absence from Yokohama, Japan, at a time when she could have returned for the commencement of the school year had she received a reply to her letter or a demand that she return. To hold that Mrs. Seaman was guilty of 'persistent' violation of the school board's regulations under the evidence presented in this case, even though the violation resulted in an absence of several school days, is to distort the meaning of the term 'persistent,' no matter what acceptable definition is used. The word 'persistent is defined by lexicographers as 'refusing to relent; continuing, especially in the face of opposition . . . stubborn; persevering . . . constantly repeated.'And in the judicial decisions of this, as well as other states, the word has been interpreted to mean 'continuing or constant.' " (Id. at pp. 81-82.)