Request By:
Mr. James Caudill, Superintendent
Hazard City Schools
325 Broadway
Hazard, Kentucky 41701
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Robert L. Chenoweth, Assistant Attorney General
As Superintendent of the Hazard City Schools you have asked the Office of the Attorney General to consider a matter involving the issuance of a continuing service contract rather than a limited contract because of clerical error. You stated the continuing service contract was signed by the Chairman and Secretary of the Board and the teacher but that the minutes of the Board show that the teacher was entitled only to a limited contract based upon three years of teaching in the school system. You have asked whether the continuing service contract is binding on the Board and if not, may the Board reissue a limited contract for which the teacher is properly entitled.
It is the opinion of the Office of the Attorney General that the continuing service contract is not binding and is void. See OAG 65-369, copy attached. The giving of a continuing service contract after only three years of teaching service in the school system would be an ultra vires act, that is, beyond the lawful power of the Board. Eligibility for continuing service contract status is specifically established by statute. When the criteria for such contract status as spelled out in KRS 161.740 are met and a fifth-year contract is given, then, and only then, by operation of law will a teacher be entitled to a continuing service contract. The Hazard City Schools' Board of Education should reissue a limited contract to the teacher in question.