Request By:
Mr. Wilford Baird
Route # 1
Calhoun, Kentucky 42327
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; Robert L. Chenoweth, Assistant Attorney General
As a member of the McLean County Board of Education you have asked the Office of the Attorney General for an opinion on the following question:
"If a teacher receives tenure without the board members knowledge, what alternatives do the board members have?"
It is our opinion that the law does not permit nor support such a possibility.
It is clear from the school tenure laws the procedure that is to be followed concerning a teacher eligible for continuing service status in a school system. KRS 161.740, copy attached, provides in pertinent part:
"(1) Teachers eligible for continuing service status in any school district shall be those teachers who meet qualifications listed in this section:
(b) When a currently employed teacher is recommended for re-employment after teaching four (4) consecutive years in the same district, or after teaching four (4) years which shall fall within a period not to exceed six (6) years in the same district, the year of present employment included, the superintendent shall recommend said teacher for a continuing contract, and, if the teacher is employed by the board of education, a written continuing contract shall be issued."
This subsection calls for the superintendent to make a recommendation for re-employment and such recommendation is to be for a continuing contract and if the teacher is employed by the board, the written contract will be for continuing service status. See also KRS 161.750(3). Thus, without knowing more facts surrounding the situation you have in mind, it is our opinion that when a currently employed teacher who is eligible for continuing contract status is recommended for re-employment by the superintendent and the board votes favorably on that recommendation, the teacher is rehired and is entitled to tenure in the school system.
We wish to point out that concerning a limited contract teacher not eligible for a continuing service contract, it would be possible for there to be a renewal of the limited contract even though the superintendent made no recommendation in this regard. We do not believe this is an advisable practice and have formally suggested "that the superintendent of schools make recommendations both for renewal and for nonrenewal as he or she sees fit as concerns limited contract teachers. " See OAG 77-308, copy attached.