No action may be proposed or approved based upon personal or political reasons on the part of the employer, chief executive officer, or governing board. A teacher shall attain tenure, and a classified employee shall attain nonprobationary status as follows:

(1) Except as otherwise provided by Section 16-23-3, a teacher who is not an employee of a two-year educational institution operated under the authority and control of the Department of Postsecondary Education, shall attain tenure upon the completion of three complete, consecutive school years of full-time employment as a teacher with the same employer unless the governing board approves and issues written notice of termination to the teacher on or before the last day of the teacher’s third consecutive, complete school year of employment. For purposes of this chapter, a probationary teacher whose employment or reemployment is effective prior to October 1 of the school year and who completes the school year shall be deemed to have served a complete school year. A teacher employed by a two-year educational institution operated under the authority and control of the Department of Postsecondary Education shall attain tenured status upon the completion of six consecutive semesters, excluding summer terms, at the same two-year institution, unless the president issues notice of termination to the teacher on or before 15 days prior to the end of the sixth consecutive semester of employment, excluding summer terms. No probationary teacher employed by a two-year educational institution operated under the authority and control of the Department of Postsecondary Education shall attain tenure during or at the completion of a summer term. For teachers who are required to hold a professional educator's certificate, time in service without such a certificate shall not be credited toward the attainment of tenure.

(2) A probationary classified employee who is not an employee of a two-year educational institution operated under the authority and control of the Department of Postsecondary Education attains nonprobationary status upon the completion of three complete, consecutive school years of full-time employment with the same employer unless the governing body of the employer approves and issues written notice of termination to the employee on or before the fifteenth day of June immediately following the employee's third consecutive complete school year of employment. In the first year of each legislative quadrennium, the written notice shall be provided on or before June 30. For purposes of this chapter, a probationary classified employee whose employment or reemployment is effective prior to October 1 of the school year and who completes the school year shall be deemed to have served a complete school year. A probationary classified employee of a two-year educational institution operated under the authority and control of the Department of Postsecondary Education shall attain nonprobationary status upon the completion of 36 consecutive months of employment at the same two-year institution, unless the president issues notice of termination to the classified employee on or before 15 days prior to the end of the thirty-sixth month of employment.

(3) All of the following additional terms, conditions, and limitations apply to the attainment and retention of tenure or nonprobationary status:

a. Only complete school years of service as defined in this chapter, including any leave that is credited to the employee for such purposes under board policy or applicable law, may be credited to the attainment of tenure or nonprobationary status.

b. Neither tenure nor nonprobationary status may be attained as a chief executive officer, a chief school financial officer, as a president or vice president of a two-year educational institution operated under the authority and control of the Department of Postsecondary Education, or in or by virtue of employment in temporary, part-time, substitute, summer school, occasional, seasonal, supplemental, irregular, or like forms of employment, or in positions that are created to serve experimental, pilot, temporary, or like special programs, projects, or purposes, the funding and duration of which are finite.

c. Except as expressly provided to the contrary elsewhere in this chapter, neither tenure nor nonprobationary status in this chapter creates or confers any enforceable right or protected interest in or to a specific position, rank, work site or location, assignment, title, or rate of compensation within those categories of employment.

d. Service performed as a teacher may not be converted to, recognized, or otherwise credited to the employee for the purpose of attaining nonprobationary status as a classified employee. Service performed in the capacity of a classified employee may not be converted to, recognized, or otherwise credited to the employee for the purpose of attaining tenure as a teacher, whether or not the classified employee holds a certificate issued by the State Department of Education.

e. Neither tenured status nor time in probationary service shall be transferable from one employer subject to this chapter to another such employer, except that employees whose employer changes by virtue of annexation, school district formation, consolidation, or a similar reorganization over which the employee has no control shall retain tenure or nonprobationary status and service credit attained by virtue of employment with the predecessor employer.