Request By:
Honorable Neal Smith
Attorney at Law
Pikeville, Kentucky 41501
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Robert L. Chenoweth, Assistant Attorney General
As the attorney for the Pike County Board of Education you have asked the Office of the Attorney General for an opinion regarding a board's legal duties to provide written notification of specific reason or reasons for not reemploying an individual as athletic director. You correctly noted the applicable section of the school laws to this matter as being KRS 161.760.
Enclosed is a photocopy of an opinion, OAG 75-339, which we believe is dispositive of your question. In essence, if the board, after recommendation of the superintendent of schools, is going to reduce or eliminate the extra service of a certified employe, written notice of the reason or reasons is required only upon request by the teacher. KRS 161.760(1). However, if the reduction or elimination of the extra service is going to be accompanied by a corresponding reduction in pay, the board has the mandated obligation to inform the certified employe of this fact with a written statement of reason or reasons by May 15. No request by the certified employe is necessary under this latter circumstance. The end effect to this is that if the Pike County Board of Education did not notify the certified employe who had held the athletic director position by May 15, 1977, that he would no longer be assigned this position and the reasons therefor and that there would be a reduction in pay, the board is foreclosed from reducing this individual's salary for this school year.
We also point out that if the individual who was serving as athletic director has been an administrator in the school system for three consecutive years, the provisions of KRS 161.765 would be applicable before this individual could be demoted to a nonadministrative position in the school system. See OAG 77-114, copy attached.