Request By:
Mr. George E. Carroll
Instructional Supervisor
McCreary County School System
Whitley City, Kentucky 42653
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; Robert L. Chenoweth, Assistant Attorney General
You have asked the Office of the Attorney General to consider a matter relating to KRS 161.155, the sick leave for teacher provisions in our school laws. You noted in your letter the conditions upon which sick leave must be granted. The statute provides:
"Sick leave shall be granted to a teacher if he presents a personal affidavit or a certificate of a physician stating that the teacher was ill or that the teacher was absent for the purpose of attending to a member of his immediate family who was ill." KRS 161.155(2).
You stated that in many schools there is no notary public present and that the acquiring of a notarized statement can be difficult. You presented the following questions concerning this matter.
1. Can a school principal, by virtue of his/her office or position, sign these cards in lieu of a Notary Public?
2. Can a local Board of Education give this authority to their school principals?
3. Since a teacher is classed as a state employee, are other state employees required to essentially document their leave in about the same way? If not, is it constitutional to require a teacher to document their absences when other state employees are not required to do the same thing?
The above referenced language in KRS 161.155 mandatorily directs that sick leave be granted when either of two alternatives are used to verify the conditions upon which the request is based. As this office noted in OAG 75-359, copy attached, "As a practical matter, some school districts allow sick leave on teacher's statement without even an affidavit or a physician's certificate. " We believe that while the statute leaves no discretion to a school if an affidavit or physician's certificate is received, a policy may be established requiring less verification or, for that matter, none at all.
Therefore, it is our opinion that a local board of education could establish a policy permitting a school principal to accept statements signed by teachers relating to request for sick leave even though the statements have not been notarized.
We believe there does not exist any constitutional infirmities regarding teachers being permitted by statute to verify their request for sick leave when there is an absence of statutory provisions in this area for other state employes. Teachers are not in the same classification of state employe as are those governed by the merit system, KRS, Chapter 18.