Request By:
Mr. James Caudill
Superintendent
Hazard City Schools
Hazard, Kentucky 41701
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Robert L. Chenoweth, Assistant Attorney General
You have asked the Office of the Attorney General to further consider the matter discussed in OAG 78-831. You have given the office additional facts and your question now is one of a construction of the so-called portable tenure provision of KRS 161.740(1)(c). The factual background for us to consider was stated by you as follows:
"The teacher in question had the following teaching experience prior to employment with the Hazard City School District.
1969-71 - 2 years - Irvine Independent Schools (Merged with the Estill County Schools)
1971-73 - 2 years - Estill County School District (He was granted a continuing contract by Estill County on May 15, 1973 but accepted the Lynch position.)
1973-75 - 2 years - Lynch Independent School District"
You have asked the following questions:
1. Did the 4 years experience with the Irvine and Estill County School District qualify this teacher to carry continuing contract status to the Lynch School District.
2. If he did not carry this continuing contract status to Lynch and was given one after only two years service, would the portable law apply to Hazard City Schools in the employment of this teacher.
The question is the effective date of the portable tenure law. If the effective date of this provision was June, 1974, the continuing service status would not have followed him to Lynch. Am I correct in this assumption."
The importance of further consideration by this office of this matter is that the teacher in question is completing the fourth year in the Hazard City Schools and his status needs to be determined prior to spring employment.
As you are aware, the provisions of KRS 161.740(1)(c) were amended in 1974 by Senate Bill 125 as follows:
"When a teacher has attained continuing contract status in one (1) district and becomes employed in another district, said teacher shall retain that status provided, however, that a district may require a one-year probationary period of service in that district before granting that status [resume probationary status and shall become eligible for continuing contract status only upon fulfilling the requirements of KRS 161.740(1)(a) and (b)]." (Underscored language constituted amendment and bracketed language was deleted.)
The effective date for this new language was June 21, 1974. Thus, the first time that this language would have been on the books and available for use was the 1974-75 school year. If a teacher moved from one school system where a tenure status contract was enjoyed in the 1973-74 school year to another school system for the 1974-75 school year, tenure status could have been given immediately or after a one-year probation. If the move had been made in the 1972-73 school year, the school system would not have been at liberty to give a tenured contract two years hence for 1974-75 and a full four-years service would have been required before a teacher would have been eligible for a tenure contract.
Looking now at the teaching record of the teacher in question, we are certain that the teacher did not take his tenure with him from the Estill County system to the Lynch position. In 1973-74 the law was that upon moving from one school system to another, the teacher had to "resume probationary status and shall become eligible for continuing contract status only upon fulfilling the requirements of KRS 161.740(1)(a) and (b)," that is, teach four out of six years in the new school system. Also, the teacher in question could not have been given tenure at Lynch in the 1974-75 school year because he did not have such status somewhere for the previous year. Thus, it is our opinion the teacher in question never had tenure at Lynch and may not attain tenure in the Hazard City Schools until after teaching four out of the last six years in the Hazard system and being employed for the fifth year by the Hazard Board of Education.
Due to the possibility that OAG 75-305 may be construed to be inconsistent with this opinion, it is hereby withdrawn.