Opinion ID: 1822828
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: appeal on the merits.

Text: It appears from the bill of exceptions filed in this case that the Board of Education of Benton County, Mississippi, reorganized all the area and territory in Benton County in compliance with Chap. 12, Laws Ex. Session of Miss. Legislature 1953, into one county-wide school district. All the schools and school districts were abolished and the whole area was incorporated into and became a part of the Benton County School District. The Board of Education provided two attendance centers for white children, one at Hickory Flat, and the other at Ashland, Mississippi, the county seat. These two attendance centers were designed to serve all of the educable children of Benton County, and both attendance centers consisted of elementary and high schools. Children attending schools out of Benton County were directed to attend one of the two above-named attendance centers, and all of the children who had been attending school in other counties returned to the attendance centers in Benton County, except the petitioning children who are appellees in this case. Under the law prior to the reorganization above-mentioned, the children of a certain area of Benton County had been assigned to, and were attending, Potts Camp Line Consolidated School District at Potts Camp, Marshall County, Mississippi. This consolidated school district in Benton County had been abolished along with the other districts and schools by the reorganization of Benton County into one school district. The children living in the abolished area of Potts Camp Consolidated School District of Benton County (67 in number) filed applications or petitions with the Board of Education of Benton County, Mississippi, asking that they be allowed to transfer to the Potts Camp Attendance Center in Marshall County. The petitioners were granted a hearing and an order was entered by the Board of Education of Benton County denying the application for transfer, and the order set out the reason for the denial. An appeal was taken to the Finance Commission, as heretofore set out, thence to the Chancery Court of Benton County. The Legislature of Mississippi met in Extraordinary Session in November 1953 and enacted a sweeping and much-needed reorganization of the school laws of the State of Mississippi. See Secs. 6328-01, et seq., Miss. Code 1942, Rec. Sec. 7 of the Laws of Ex. Session 1954, Chap. 25, provided for the transfer of students and was in the following language: Section 7. Transfer students.  (a) Upon the petition in writing of a parent or guardian, resident of the school district of an individual student filed or lodged with the president or secretary of the board of trustees of a school district in which the pupil has been enrolled or is qualified to be enrolled as a student, or (b) upon the aforesaid petition or the initiative of the board of trustees of a school district as to the transfer of a grade or grades, individual students living in one school district or a grade or grades of a school within the districts may be legally transferred to another school district, by the mutual consent of the boards of trustees of all school districts concerned, said consent to be given in writing and spread upon the minutes of such boards, and with the approval in writing of the county board or boards of education concerned. The board of trustees of the school district to which such petition may be addressed shall act thereon not later than its next regular meeting subsequent to the filing or lodging of said petition, and a failure to act within said time shall constitute a rejection of such request. The board of trustees of the other school district involved, the transferee board, shall act on such request for transfer as soon as possible after the transferor board shall have approved or rejected such transfer and no later than the next regular meeting of the transferee board, and a failure of such transferee board to act within such time shall constitute a rejection of such request. If such a transfer should be refused by the board of trustees of either school district, then an appeal may be had to the county board of education. The said county board of education to which said appeal is taken shall act thereon not later than the date of its next regular meeting subsequent to the disapproval or failure to act by the board of trustees of said school district, or not later than the date of its next regular meeting subsequent to the filing of such appeal. In cases involving more than one county, appeals shall lie to the State Educational Finance Commission unless the boards of education of all counties concerned shall approve such transfer. (Emphasis supplied.) In 1960, House Bill No. 628, (Sec. 6248-07, Miss. Code 1942, Rec.) the Legislature changed the above Section 7 so as to leave out the following line at the bottom of the second paragraph, to wit: In cases involving more than one county, appeals shall lie to the State Educational Finance Commission unless the boards of education of all counties concerned shall approve such transfer. In the place where this sentence was eliminated, the following paragraph was added to wit: In cases involving two (2) counties, each of which is organized on the county-unit basis, where the students residing in one county have been attending and wish to continue attending the school situated in the adjoining county which children from their community have been attending for more than forty (40) years and where the county line lies within one thousand (1,000) yards of the school property, transfers may be granted for a period of time not to exceed five (5) years, subject to the approval of the two (2) respective county boards of education. In case the two (2) boards are unable to agree or in case there is a popular objection to the decision of the respective boards in the matter, appeals shall lie to the state educational finance commission whose decision shall be final. Sec. 6334-11, Miss. Code 1942, Rec., provides that: No minor child may enroll in or attend any school except in the school district of his residence, unless such child be lawfully transferred from the school district of his residence to a school in another school district in accord with the statutes of this state now in effect or which may be hereafter enacted. Chap. 260, Laws 1954, (Sec. 6334-02, Miss. Code 1942, Rec.) is in the following language: In making assignments of children to schools or attendance centers as provided in this act, the board of trustees shall take into consideration the educational needs and welfare of the child involved, the welfare and best interest of all the pupils attending the school or schools involved, the availability of school facilities, sanitary conditions and facilities at the school or schools involved, health and moral factors at the school or schools, and in the community involved, and all other factors which the board of trustees may consider pertinent, relevant or material in their effect on the welfare and best interest of the school district and the particular school or schools involved. All such assignments shall be on an individual basis as to the particular child involved and, in making such assignment, the board of trustees shall not be limited or circumscribed by the boundaries of any attendance areas which may have been established by such board of trustees. This section is applicable to trustees of one district and is also applicable to the county school board; because under Chap. 260, Laws 1954, Sec. 6 (Sec. 6334-06, Miss. Code 1942, Rec.), the county board of education acts as the board of trustees of the county-wide school district. In the case of Myers v. Board of Supervisors of De Soto County, 156 Miss. 251, 125 So. 718 (1930), in a case involving school districts under the law then in force, this Court said: We are of the opinion that parents having children living with them in the district who are entitled to attend the public schools and have not finished the course of study therein are patrons of such school. Under other provisions of the school law a pupil cannot attend school outside of the limits of the school district without the consent of the trustees of both schools, that is, of the district in which he lives and of the district of the school in which he proposes to attend. (Hn 7) It is therefore clear that children seeking to attend an attendance center outside the school district of their residence as constituted by the school board would be required to submit their application to the board of trustees in the district of their residence, and in this case the board of trustees and the Benton County Board of Education are one and the same board. It is expressly set out in the above-mentioned Sec. 6248-07, Miss. Code 1942, Rec., that Upon a petition in writing of a parent    filed or lodged with the president or secretary of the board of trustees of a school district in which the pupil has been enrolled or is qualified to be enrolled    may be legally transferred to another school district, by the mutual consent of the boards of trustees of all school districts concerned, said consent to be given in writing and spread upon the minutes of such boards, and with the approval in writing of the county board or boards of education    If such a transfer should be refused by the board of trustees of either school district, then an appeal may be had to the county board of education. In cases involving more than one county, appeals shall lie to the State Educational Finance Commission unless the boards of education of all counties concerned shall approve such transfer. (Hn 8) In order to have a proper understanding of the law with reference to the transfer of children from one district to another, Sec. 6334-01, et seq., Miss. Code 1942, should be read and considered in connection with Sec. 6248-07, Miss. Code 1942, Rec., and these two sections should be interpreted so as to give effect to the legislative intent expressed in Sec. 6334-02, Miss. Code 1942, Rec. Sec. 6334-01, et seq., Miss. Code 1942, Rec., deals with the primary assignment of the child to an attendance center, when such child presents himself for enrollment in the public schools of this State. When the parent of a child shall feel aggrieved by the assignment, he may make an application in writing to the trustees for a review of such assignment. (Sec. 6334-03, Miss. Code 1942, Rec.) The parent may then appeal to the county board of education. (Sec. 6334-04, Miss. Code 1942, Rec.) The parent may again appeal to the circuit court under Sec. 6334-05, Miss. Code 1942, Recompiled. Sec. 6334-01 through Sec. 6334-05, Miss. Code 1942, Rec., deals with the assignment of the individual child to attendance centers within the county. On the other hand, Sec. 6248-07, Miss. Code 1942, Rec. contains the following language: In cases where two (2) or more counties are concerned, if one of the county boards of education shall fail to act    then an appeal    may be had to the state educational finance commission in like manner as hereinbefore set out, and the decision of said commission shall be final. (Hn 9) It is therefore apparent that when two or more counties are involved the appeal allowed is to the State Finance Commission and thence to the chancery court, but an appeal taken by an individual student from one district within the county to another within the same county is to the county board of education and thence to the circuit court of that county. Sec. 6334-02, Miss. Code 1942, Rec., requires the trustees to take into consideration not only the educational needs and welfare of the individual child involved but the educational needs and welfare of all of the pupils of the school or schools involved, and for that reason on the appeal to the county board of education and thence to the circuit court, the matter shall be tried de novo. (Sec. 6334-05, Miss. Code 1942, Rec.) The appeal allowed when two counties are involved to the State Educational Finance Commission is also tried de novo. (Sec. 6248-07, Miss. Code 1942, Rec.) It will be observed, however, that the appeal from the Finance Commission allowed under Sec. 6246-12, Miss. Code 1942, Rec., to the chancery court is not permitted to be tried de novo. The chancellor on the trial of this case in the court below gave an oral opinion in which he said: Now, we go into this thing, not as if I were trying it de novo, anew, but we go into it to try it on the proposition of whether or not the State Finance Commission has been capricious and arbitrary, has so mistreated the Hickory Flat School or the school system that it shocks the conscience, or that a Court of Equity should overrule them and make them do the right thing. The chancellor, in his verbal opinion, carefully reviewed the evidence submitted to the Finance Commission as set out in the bill of exceptions and stated:    I could not conscientiously say that their decision was so capricious and arbitrary and so out of reason that it would become my duty as the Chancery Judge to overrule their decision. This Court used this language in the case of Adams County v. State Educational Finance Commission of Mississippi, 229 Miss. 566, 91 So.2d 524, as follows: But whether the State Educational Finance Commission was acting in a purely administrative or legislative capacity, or in a quasi-judicial capacity in the matter of approving or disapproving the order of the county board of education in this case, the Commission was exercising a discretionary power vested in it by the statute, and the power of the court upon appeal is limited to a determination of the question whether the order of the Commission is supported by substantial evidence or is arbitrary and capricious, and whether the order went beyond the power of the Commission to make, or violates some statutory or constitutional right of an interested party. We think the chancellor was correct in holding that he should determine the appeal in this case in the light of the Adams case, supra. See 42 Am. Jur., Public Administrative Law, Sec. 209, p. 610; Board of Supervisors Clay County v. McCormick, et al., 207 Miss. 216, 42 So.2d 177. (Hn 10) We have carefully examined the opinion and decree of the trial court, and we do not find reversible error in any of the matters submitted to the chancellor with reference to the order of the Finance Commission. We have examined the evidence submitted by the bill of exceptions, and we agree with the chancellor that there is sufficient substantial evidence in the bill of exceptions filed in this case to sustain and justify the order of the Finance Commission, and that the findings of the Finance Commission are sufficient to sustain an appeal.