Request By:
Mr. Thomas E. Hagler
Superintendent
Grant County Board of Education
Box 31
Williamstown, Kentucky 41097
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Robert L. Chenoweth, Deputy Attorney General
As the Superintendent of the Grant County school system you have asked the Office of the Attorney General to consider a teacher tenure question concerning KRS 161.740(1)(c). This provision of school law reads 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."
This section was considered in Carpenter v. Board of Ed. of Owsley Cty., Ky., 582 S.W.2d 645 (1979), wherein the Court determined that KRS 161.740(1)(c) was limited in its availability to those teachers who currently hold tenure at the time of their employment in another district; that is, the Court concluded that there was a need for continuity of teaching service between the two school systems. See OAG 78-320 wherein this subject was discussed. However, the question you have asked concerning this statute was not decided in the Carpenter decision, nor has the Office of the Attorney General addressed this issue.
You stated your belief that this statute appears to call for a teacher who has obtained continuing contract status in one district and who becomes employed in another district to be entitled to a continuing contract in the new district following a one-year probationary period. However, you asked whether the granting of a continuing contract is automatic after the one-year period or whether a board can wait one, two, three, or even four years before granting a continuing contract to a teacher who had a continuing contract in the previous district of employment. It is the advisory opinion of the Attorney General that the new school district has only the options of not renewing the transferred teacher's contract after the probationary year upon recommendation of the superintendent, or to grant a new contract for the second year upon recommendation of the superintendent; and of course that contract would be a continuing service contract (tenure) in the new school system.
In support of our conclusion, we first note that a school board, with the superintendent's recommendation, has the choice to place the transferred tenured teacher on the one-year probationary period or to immediately grant the teacher a tenured contract without a probationary one-year period. See OAG 74-396, copy attached. In this opinion we concluded that if a teacher was employed with the understanding of the one-year probation, the employing board had the discretionary right not to employ the teacher for a second year. That opinion went on to say that "if the teacher is reemployed for the second year, he acquires continuing contract status in the employing district." While this latter conclusion was not expanded upon, we believe from a plain literal reading of the statute, no more than the possibility for a one-year probation period was contemplated by the General Assembly. Although there may be reasons for a school superintendent and board to want to "look over" the transfer tenured teacher for more than one year, we believe that for the teacher who has been on the probationary year, the superintendent must make the recommendation to the board to renew or not the contract after only the one year. Thus, we believe a superintendent and board cannot wait two, three, or four years before granting a continuing service contract (tenure) to the properly transferred teacher under KRS 161.740(1)(c).