Request By:
Mr. Kendall V. Boggs
Superintendent
Letcher County Schools
Whitesburg, Kentucky 41858
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Robert L. Chenoweth, Assistant Attorney General
As the Superintendent of the Letcher County School District, you have requested an advisory opinion regarding your schools' approved amended school calendar which provides for an extended school day of one hour and twelve minutes. This extended school day plan is reflected in the attendance registers as one make-up day for each five days worked. The need for the make-up days in the first place is, of course, due to the abominable weather experienced last winter.
As additional background for your questions, you stated in your letter that substitute teachers are being paid one and one-fifth days for each extended day they teach. Moreover, that the Letcher County Board of Education policies grant sick leave in accordance with KRS 161.155 and that the Board has adopted a policy under KRS 161.152 authorizing three days for emergency death leave and an additional one personal leave day under the provisions of KRS 161.154.
Your questions, then, based upon the above information are as follows:
1. In the event a teacher is absent for illness during the time the school system is operating on the extended school day, does this constitute a deduction of one and one-fifth days from his or her current or accumulated sick leave?
2. Should a teacher take the personal leave day while the school system is operating on the extended day, would this also constitute one and one-fifth days? If so, would the teacher lose one-fifth day's salary since this is one-fifth day beyond the one day provided for in school board policies?
3. Suppose a teacher is absent and is not covered by sick leave, personal leave or emergency death leave, will he or she lose one and one-fifth day's salary?
We will respond to your questions as presented.
As a foundation for our response to your first question we bring to your attention the statutory and regulatory provisions relating to the school term, the school day, and amending a school calendar, all of which we know you are aware. KRS 158.070 establishes the minimum school term and directs a certain number of days the school calendar must reflect the schools in a district will be closed, e.g., for attendance at professional meetings. The State Board for Elementary and Secondary Education must approve each public common school district's school calendar for each school term and are directed to adopt regulations to serve this end. KRS 158.060(4). The regulations adopted are found at 703 KAR 2:020. Each school district's calendar must show at least 175 days of actual classroom instruction. In situations such as Kentucky has suffered under during the past two winters, a significant number of school days have been missed in many school districts because of the ice and heavy snows and also in part due to the need for every conservation. Since these missed school days wreaks havoc with planned school calendars, many schools have been faced with amending their school calendar to show how these missed school days will be made up so as to still get 175 actual instructional days of school in before the end of the fiscal and school year, June 30. KRS 158.050 and 160.450. Eligibility of a school district to participate in the foundation program fund is in part dependent upon fulfilling these school term and school year requirements. See KRS 157.350.
One seemingly popular way, if there can be such a thing, to make up lost school days is by amending the school calendar so as to extend a school day an additional one hour and twelve minutes. By statute a "school day" is defined to be, except under limited situations, "six (6) hours of actual school work." KRS 158.060. Thus, five periods of actual school work of one hour and twelve minutes each add up to six hours and, ergo, one school day. As to what is considered to be meant by "actual school work" see OAG 78-344, copy attached. The net effect of the extended school day plan is to consolidate one and a portion school days into each calendar day.
Teachers are employed to teach the school term established by the local district. A school term is made up of school days, not calendar days. On an extended school day plan, just as the teacher is getting paid for teaching for more than one school day in each calendar day, so must the sword cut on the other side to cause an appropriate deduction when the teacher does not teach the school day and a portion of another. The teacher absent for illness during the time a school system is operating on an extended school day should have the whole school day and the portion of another school day deducted from accumulated sick leave mandated under KRS 161.155.
Our answer to your second question is principally the same as to your first. However, it is discretionary with a local board of education as to whether any personal leave day(s) will be provided whereas the granting of sick leave days is mandatorily required by statute. Cf. KRS 161.154 and 161.155. Thus, since the one personal leave day granted by the Letcher County Board of Education is a matter of grace, the Board could, but would not be required to, adopt a policy to handle this year's situation and forgive the additional one-fifth personal leave day with pay.
As for your last question, we believe in view of our answers to your first two questions, the answer to this question must be: "yes."