School Districts Keeping An Eye On Court Case

Much to the dismay of local school districts, state lawmakers ended the 2011 session without a resolution resolution to a recent Missouri Supreme Court ruling that could result in a rapid influx of students from unaccredited schools transferring to neighboring districts.

That possibility is the result of the court's July opinion in the Jane Turner vs.  case that students from unaccredited districts can choose to attend any accredited district in the same or adjoining county. Furthermore, the court contends that the accepting district has no discretion in the matter.

The case is back in St. Louis County Circuit Court Tuesday and will be resolved at the lower court level.

Local school officials are concerned that the lack of local control would force them to increase class size and add classrooms, which could ultimately result in tax increases for district residents. In the St. Louis area, both the St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS) and Riverview Gardens School District are unaccredited.

Several bills were proposed in the last legislative session to address the topic, but none were approved, includingwhich would have provided scholarships for students in unaccredited schools to attend independent schools, along with giving county schools an option to start charter schools in the city.

The lack of a legislative fix has school districts in a wait and see postion.

"There's not much to tell. We're expecting the status quo until the lower court decides something, but there's nothing different at this point."
She said she thinks some parents did respond to (Superintendent) Dr. Senti's call to action asking parents to write their lawmakers. "We don't know how many, but we're pretty sure it did happen."

The Parkway School district in the past has noted that there are pockets of room available if there were to be an influx of transfers, however, it is also dealing with overcrowding in the northern reaches of the district, including schools like Craig and Ross elementary, drawing students from Creve Coeur.

Ladue School Superintendent Dr. Marsha Chappelow was also anticipating what might happen after Tuesday's court hearing, and expected a meeting among local school leaders and attorneys to plot a course.

Turner vs. Clayton:  History of the case

Shortly after the St. Louis school district lost its accreditation in 2007, Jane Turner and three other parents, representing six students attending the School District of Clayton, sued the Clayton and St. Louis districts and the City of St. Louis Board of Education. The students, who live in the SLPS district, were attending Clayton schools based on personal tuition agreements.

The plaintiffs claimed that the SLPS district should pay their children’s tuition because it had become unaccredited and that the Clayton district should send the tuition bills to the transitional district. The parents pointed to a state statute that requires unaccredited districts to pay the tuition costs of its students who choose to attend an accredited school in an adjoining district. 

The St. Louis County Circuit ruled in favor of both school districts, finding that the statute was inapplicable to the SLPS district. After several appeals, the case ended up going to the Missouri Supreme Court. In July, it issued its opinion and subsequently sent the case back to the lower courts to decide.

Tennill said the Supreme Court weighed in on three key issues. In a nutshell, they include:

1. The state law that the plaintiffs cited does apply to the SLPS district. Contrary to the lower court's judgment, the Supreme Court maintains that unaccredited districts should pay the tuition for students who choose to attend accredited districts. 

2. Tuition agreements supercede the plaintiffs' rights for restitution. The Supreme Court decided that the parents are not entitled to restitution for tuition paid to Clayton because the St. Louis public schools became unaccredited because of existing tuition agreements. 

3. School districts are required to accept any student from an unaccredited district. On a 4-3 vote, the court concluded that other state laws giving districts discretion in deciding whether or not to admit students from unaccredited districts do not apply under existing state law. Furthermore, it noted that legislators in 1993 removed a section of the statute that read: "but no school shall be required to admit any pupil."

“We’re back in court May 31 to continue to pursue a resolution,” Tennill said. “We’ll have a better idea of our next steps and the direction we’ll take after that conference.”

Rachel Heaton and Jason Rosenbaum also contributed information for this report.