please the court i'm tom kennedy ever present the petition or appellant in this discussion i want to talk about the issue of distance but i think that's the biggest issue in the case and whether or not the distance between the petitioners home and waterloo which we suggest is fifty miles roundtrip if significantly has a significant adverse impact on the educational welfare of a student kindergarten student as compared to a twenty minute round trip from the petitioner's home to redbud illinois  for this argument i thought well why don't i google the question of distance with the state board of education and see whether they have any policies rules regulations anything on the subject of systems since i hadn't thought of it before i thought i would look it turns out that they don't but they have is they frequently asked question in their section on people transportation on the website of the illinois state board of education in which they say they respond to the question is there a time limit the student can spend on the school bus answer no however districts are encouraged to limit the travel time to not more than one hour one way that has never been interpreted never been discussed in any court case but i will tell you it's a big deal for kids with special needs because very often kid was very involved with special needs it's put on the school bus transported to someplace like the school for the deaf in jacksonville or hope school in springfield or some other institution and there's big concern about kids waiting buses for a long time but then in the context of annexation cases in detachment cases as this one is i can't find a single case that talks about distances this great but here the mom testified in the the petitioners testified in that hearing that the bus right bus right up to waterloo involve them going a mile or amount a half down the road to an intersection which i would represent to use in the middle of a cornfield well that's not in the record  and the state and they said go from there they pick up the bus there they right over want to be curvy road to waterloo and that takes an hour and thirty five minutes and they have to get to the bus stop at six thirty five am in the morning moms testified if they were going to go to red but they would walk down to the end of their driveway where the bus would pick them up at seven thirty five in the morning and they would ride twenty minutes one way to redbud to the elementary school there they'd count completed that this is an additional seven and a half hours a week on the bus that a kindergarten kindergartner now six years old would have to spend on the bus frankly for no good reason the pair of testimony was not contradicted the superintendent of water we agreed that those times were correct more or less give or take ten minutes nobody said in the hearing that a bus ride of that length of time would not adversely affect the educational welfare of the student there aren't any cases which talk about bus rides of that distance in all the ending thanks to an expedition cases that i've looked at and i've looked at all of them going back to the ohm one of the leading cases the jonesborough case which was decided by this court in which the court found them that a family that lived in ana had to send their kid by bus to jonesboro to school because that's the district they live in a two mile bus ride adversely affected the if kill for educational welfare of the student who could have walked to school in anna from their home so two mile bus ride was found to be significant because the effect of the time safety effort expense of the student and if it minimized the kid is regional board and in that case the petitioners were a farm family as the petitioners are here they came to the to the school district of low point washburn and they went to the school board before they bought their property and they said we want to buy this property but we wanted to tax this property from your school district so our kids can go to the met up for a school district where they grew up and where all our contacts are and the school school board said no dice we're not going to detach so they bought the property a farm property there they own that they've got the only kids in the detachment area  they buy the property then they they file one of these petitions and as they did here they lost as here the regional board of trustees made no findings of fact whatsoever to said you lose then they appeal to the district court the circuit court they lose once again once again no findings of fact they just lose then they come to the court of appeals in that case the distance to met a more of the school they wanted to go to was four point something miles and the school district that that within the district they were living in was eight point eight miles for the high school the kid said we want to know we want to go to school a minimum where we grew up well they knew when they were moving to our to the what school district that they were going to have to change school districts they knew it when they bought their house when they moved in and they should be held to that as they've said in this case and the court in the  that the fact that they knew when they would go into the area quote does not diminish their eligibility to have their petition granted and the court held in their case that the educational welfare of these kids would be enhanced by the shorter distance between four and eight miles and you know it's just inescapable that if if eight miles is a is a bad deal for little kids fifty miles round trip is a heck of a counsel for the respondent at the conclusion of the of the testimony in his closing statement on page ninety nine of the record said quote the statute says you can consider these bus rides when there's as much distance as there is here close quote what that means is i know that the distance is greater than ten miles from that exceeds ten miles from the distance to read but i know that's true we know it's all through you that the regional board can't consider the distance in this bus right when there's that much distance involved so council said it at the time we maintain that's a judicial admission that they can't change their their tune in the district court and they can't change their tune here further we've  we've suggested to the court that it consider mapquest or google maps or one of the other a computer systems to show that the mileage through of waterloo is more than ten miles greater than the saying that mapquest is not reliable if you look at people versus clarke it's a case involving somebody who is selling heroin within one thousand feet of a park district or a park and apparently there's an enhanced penalty when you sell heroin but thousand feet or less from a park and so the prosecutor was trying to show with mapquest that this person was selling heroin within one thousand feet and using mapquest to prove that and the court said well this one thousand foot rule is an element of the case you've got to prove each element beyond a reasonable doubt therefore we're not going to use mapquest to prove exactly how many feet away from the par when he got arrested in this case we're trying to use mapquest not to show a thousand feet or eight hundred twenty two feet or twelve hundred feet we're trying to show that it's twenty five miles past  in excess of the distance to read but if you know it maybe not not good mapquest maybe no good down to the number of feet but it's certainly good down to that twenty or thirty miles you know you can use mapquest to show  those are the bus routes those were prepared by the regional superintendent and he he indicated to the to the press steve those these are the routes that the bus takes so we use mapquest using those using those those addresses to calculate the distance and we came up with fifty miles roundtrip to waterloo fourteen miles roundtrip to re so you know i think using mapquest it's possible that the that the appellate court is entirely within its rights to use a generally accepted system like that best or or google maps to establish that the distance is greater than ten miles more than the top to the the distance from their home to rest and that's the that's the thing that the court has to do when the statute was amended the statute was amended to require that the petitioners show that the distance is greater than ten miles more to the school district that they want to go to compared to the one that they want to detach from i want to talk a little bit about the poem and if you don't have any other questions on distance i'm going to move quickly to one other topic and then i'm going to be done that is the fact that there just aren't any zero to deny the petition there are no reasons in the record why waterloo said we're going to nine to petition nobody there's not a piece of paper there's not a statement about why waterloo denied the petition the regional board of trustees voted four to three in may two thousand and sixteen to deny the petition the reason given by the president of the regional board was quote the board sees no significant direct educational advantage to the child to be in the read by the school district versus the water of the school that what he's doing is essentially parroting the statute that's off that's not a finding of fact that's that's that's a manifest weight of the evidence even though counsel might agree that the proper standard is not manifest weight but rather clearly erroneous in any rate no reason is given whatsoever that why doesn't a one hour and ten minute bus ride you know adversely affect a kid's educational welfare if it doesn't why doesn't if it does why does it there's got to be a reason this court in the  i think said it best in illinois and it's said that first of all the court can't you know how can you hop in the court make a decision on appellate review if there is no findings but secondly  entitle to an explanation if a public body rules against them they did they that they need to be able to have it explained to them why the public body rule against them so they can understand and that's that didn't happen here and should for purposes of review the the board president's statement is meaningless but it also appears that the board president used the wrong legal standard he said they didn't show a significant direct educational welfare disadvantage and that's an incorrect statement of the law the law has two parts direct educational benefit the amendment was the top to the statute in two thousand and sixteen was the addition of the word direct so so it to get to get detachment you got show a direct educational welfare benefit to a pupil in order to establish a case if you want to do something else which is to show the community of interest of the family that is their connection to the potentially and next case and that same district the community of interest would be yes here all my relatives lived in redbud my own some of my relatives were on the board of education my kids are in daycare and redbud ike i go to read about all the time i never go to one of them that's the community of interest if you want to show that in your case then you have to show that there would be a quote significant direct educational benefit to the children if an exception were allowed if you don't want to do that then you don't have to show a significant anything an exception is ok if you simply show a direct educational benefit and that's what we suggest here and we're not conceding that the family isn't entitle to do that to put to prove the community of interest in the whole trial argument which would they may but i think that it's clear that deep board of the school board the board of school christie is ritual board of trustees used the wrong we will stand when they deny this by saying that they didn't show a quote significant direct educational benefit think that when the court thinks about considers this issue of distance you have to do it with the with the lens within the context it's created by the statute that up language of the act that became effective january one twenty sixteen pacifically in relation to distance creates this threshold and the threshold is that it must be the statute talks about from the the it's easier just to read it when the petitioners cite in annexing district attendance center or centers in the petition or during testimony the regional board school trustees a regional board of school trustees regional board school trustees may consider the distance the difference in the distance from the detaching area attendance current attendance i did misspeak during closing argument in the in the before the regional board regarding this issue but the statute is clear it doesn't talk about bus commutes it talks about the distance from their home to the attendance and there's there is no evidence that all of that and my criticism is as you know we're taking my motion to strike the exhibit that was created by criticism of that exhibit is that it it describes the secur rural bus route that full back on itself circle times as the bus is picking kids up in different farm locations in different rural locations it has nothing to do with the distance between the plane to the petitioner's home and deeds to bring up an attendance and there's the statute doesn't say a word about us commute times and so it creates this threshold but mr kennedy  talks about a variety of cases that exist talking about about two miles being material or four miles eight miles in the in one of the cases those cases all last time i looked and if you understand because of the the way cases proceed it's unlikely this maybe the first case has been before any appeal court the state of illinois  impact of detachment of the new of the new statute but the two miles clearly wouldn't be considered could not be considered evidence by regional board today four miles eight miles could it be considered a distance difference because the statute says you don't even get to think about it unless you get to ten miles and so that's an important number into all these cases if if we were at eleven miles then the carver standards that mr kennedy talks about in his in his brief or these issues about what th impact that the distance in that affects the distance which is time to the the travel time obviously the longer the distance of the longer the travel time none of that stuff from person's house to no school no i'm not suggesting that all i'm suggesting is this is driving time from their whole to the schools or not bus commute times because those are so arbitrary because you don't know where other people in the district live but the the question has to do i believe that if the legislature intended bus commute times to be material that's what it would say when it is the head of the student have a right to transportation from their home to the to the school certainly certainly you're not talking about the and those parent driving if you're suggesting what the quickest route be i'm suggesting using the words of the statute not not as a crow flies but a realist to travel from your home to that the shortest route available for public roads correct and would it be the school's responsibility to take that route no i don't believe so but i believe that the legislature had to create some harm intended or did create some thumbnail threshold that starts the conversation about whether we get into that issue and i believe that that's  it's clear that the legislature in servile instances established these for instance the discussion about where my family goes to school where been where my hearers used to go to school those community of interest the kinds of discussions that the statute imposed the new first poll that says that you don't even talk about those whole child tight community that receive a whole child factors unless the regional board first finds that there is a again better for me to leave the community of interest but the petitioners and their children and the effect attachment will have on the whole child may be considered only if the original board school trustees are the reason the boards of school trustees first determined that there would be a significant direct educational benefit to the petitioners children the change in boundaries were allowed that's a new threshold they have to establish that before the fact that grandma used to go this school is relevant will be considered the fact that their cousins might go there that that again as it's clear to me if you read the new thresholds that are put into the statute the legislature is making it more unlikely that people with with the with the attachments are going to put be able to succeed unless they have direct educational well for advantage i believe that's a factual finding that goes directly to this statutory factor the exact words of the statute is significant direct educational benefit he said it slightly differently that in my mind that was what he was doing he was making a factual finding that there isn't a significant direct educational benefit to these children and that eliminates the community of interest and if we have the and those whole child kinds of discussions and if we have the follow the plain language of the legislature with regard to distance we don't even consider distance so they don't have any evidence that supports the detachment ultimately mr  are clearly erroneous is that is the standard of review and i believe that the regional board did a competent job probably not a perfect job but they did a competent job and there is some factual basis in the record that supports their judgment and i believe that it's appropriate for this court to allow their decision mr fall bomb in his closing argument described you know the the ideal situation of being able to have a stuart safe bus ride be able to go to girl scouts and play volleyball have to be with the family that's what would happen that's what which is that which is absolutely the truth so why does it why are the opposing we don't it is true that the statute has doesn't tell us how to calculate distance  i can tell you that there are no cases which to calculate distance as the crow flies i can't i look at the cases i can't find one that says you calculate distance by the closest car route the carb or factors have been around for a couple of decades there were other cases before it which said you can consider distance and detachment cases as far as i know none of them none of them look at the closest car route they all look at the bus route in this case we look at the bus route plug in the numbers type it out it comes out to what we showed the court fifty miles round trip to waterloo forty miles round trip to read but counsel is correct that if i argued today in the jonesborough case that my kids were going to have to go on the bus two miles to this to the school in jonesborough that was a bad deal i wouldn't be able to do that because the statue has been amended i'm going to show it's  ten miles plus whatever the walking distance is to ana before i can even talk about the distance but the point of that is that the court in the jonesboro case and all the other cases have talked about the fact of distance having an adverse educational welfare impact on kids it's hard to imagine a fifty mile round trip for a kindergartner taking an hour and ten minutes each way doesn't have an adverse educational impact on the kid the parent said it would have an adverse educational impact on their kid there was no evidence to the contrary so i would respectfully request that the court do as they did in f which is to reverse the decision of the district court remain on the case to the regional board of trustees with directions to grant the petition for