Opinion ID: 2509859
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Special Schools as a Technical Term of Art

Text: Because the ordinary meaning, context, and history of the 1983 Constitution's special schools provision all fail to support the narrow special students schools reading that the local systems seek, or the special students or special curriculum schools reading that the majority proposes, they must claim that the phrase should be understood as a specialized term of art. However, neither the local systems nor the majority have identified anything about the nature or context of the special schools provision that would show that the term was used in a technical sense, as needed to rebut the presumption that the term carries its ordinary meaning. Clarke, 199 Ga. at 164, 33 S.E.2d 425. And in any event, the use of the phrase in Georgia law before the 1983 Constitution and statements by framers of that Constitution indicate that special schools did not bear such a restricted meaning.
The local systems direct us to the Adequate Program for Education in Georgia Act of 1974, an important piece of public education legislation which provided that [t]he State Board of Education shall annually determine the amount of funds needed for the operation of the State schools for the deaf and blind and such other special schools for exceptional persons as may be established by the State Board of Education. Ga. L.1974, pp. 1045, 1051. The APEG Act indicates that the General Assembly in 1974 understood special schools to include schools for exceptional students like deaf and blind students. That is no surprise, since schools for exceptional children were among the three types of special schools specifically listed in the 1966 Amendment. See Division I(F) above. However, this legislation cannot fairly be read as limiting special schools to that single category, because the constitutional amendment enacted eight years earlier also described vocational trade schools . . . and schools for adult education as types of special schools. As discussed in Division I (c) above, in the decades before the term special school first appeared in the Constitution in 1966 (as well as in a statute that remains in effect today and a 1981 case from this Court), the General Assembly, this Court, and the Court of Appeals all used the term special school to refer to schools and school systems independent of the common county school systemsa meaning that is consistent with the ordinary meaning, context, and history of the constitutional provision. In stark contrast, the local systems and the majority have not identified any uses of the term special school in our pre-constitutional law that limited it to schools for special needs students or schools teaching special subjects. I do not contend that these limited examples of pre-1966 usage are overwhelming evidence; then again, I am not the one trying to prove that special schools mean something other than what those words ordinarily mean, that some much more limited meaning is so clear and palpable as to justify this Court's nullifying as unconstitutional a statute enacted through the democratic process. Dev. Auth. of DeKalb County, 286 Ga. at 38, 684 S.E.2d 856; Clarke, 199 Ga. at 164, 33 S.E.2d 425. When this Court turns away from the ordinary meaning of words used in legal texts, we commonly look to how the term was previously used in Georgia law, on the theory that the words may have been used the same way by later lawmakers. See City of Thomaston v. Bridges, 264 Ga. 4, 6, 439 S.E.2d 906 (1994) (noting the well-established rule of construction that absent a clear indication to the contrary, this Court should accord to virtually identical language in successor provisions the same construction given the original language and explaining that [t]his rule reflects the value of consistency in the interpretation of legal language). Thus, it is truly astounding that the majoritywhich is seeking to place an extraordinary meaning on the term special school derides this evidence of pre-constitutional meaning as a few brief instances of ill-considered language and unrelated to the `special school' provision first incorporated into our constitution in 1966. Maj. Op. at 781. Special schools as independently-created schools is how Georgia's legislators and appellate judges appear to have understood and used the term before people much like them drafted the constitutional language. To the majority, however, any evidence undermining its conclusion is simply not pertinent. Id.
In a similar vein, the majority drops a footnote saying that the State Attorney General can[not] determine the meaning of `special schools.' Maj. Op. at 780 n. 9. Of course, the Attorney General's interpretation of Georgia law is not binding on this Court, but our appellate courts have looked to such opinions as persuasive authority. See, e.g., Moore v. Ray, 269 Ga. 457, 459, 499 S.E.2d 636 (1998) (explaining that attorney general opinions are persuasive authority); In the Interest of J.S., 283 Ga.App. 448, 450, 641 S.E.2d 682 (2007) (same). As discussed in Division I(H) above, two Attorney General opinions have concluded that the General Assembly has expansive authority to create special schools, including state charter schools pursuant to the 1998 Act. See 2001 Op. Atty. Gen.2001-9, 1997 Op. Atty. Gen. U97-8. See also 1998 Op. Atty. Gen. U98-2. These opinions have persuasive value, particularly when the local systems and the majority have identified no authority, binding or persuasive, to the contrary. But instead of trying to take on the reasoning of these Attorney General opinions, the majority simply brushes them aside.
In construing our Constitution, we also sometimes look to the understanding expressed by people directly involved in drafting the document. See Collins, 198 Ga. at 22, 30 S.E.2d 866. In this respect, we are fortunate to have transcripts of many of the committee and subcommittee meetings that ultimately led to the 1983 Constitution. The majority asserts that these transcripts reveal a consensus among all the participants that `special schools' were indeed those schools that enrolled only students with certain special needs or taught only certain special subjects. Maj. Op. at 778. The only true consensus, however, was that the special schools provision was being broadened from the version in the 1976 Constitution and that the General Assembly was being granted authority to create such schools without local involvement. Like the local systems, the majority cites a few statements by drafters indicating that the special schools provision was talking about vocational schools, et cetera and would allow the General Assembly to create additional schools for the deaf and blind and other exceptional children. See Maj. Op. at 778. These references to the types of special schools that were listed in the then-existing 1976 Constitution, while understandable because constitutional language is often discussed in relation to its current objects, are not limiting. See Collins, 198 Ga. at 22, 30 S.E.2d 866. More significantly, the evidence is not so one-sided. For example, in a meeting of the Committee to Revise Article VIII in August 1980, Melvin B. Hill, Jr., who served as the Assistant Executive Director of the Select Committee on Constitutional Revision, explained that he did not include a list of the types of special schools in the new draft because I thought that even a definition of special schools should be provided by [statutory] law. Select Committee on Constitutional Revisions, 1977-1981, Transcripts of Meetings, Committee to Revise Article VIII, Vol. III, Aug. 21, 1980, p. 53. When committee members were asked later in the same meeting if they would like to specify the kinds of special schools we have in mind, LeAnna Walton responded, I think this is sufficient. I think when you start naming them you could think of fifty million different kinds. I think it's better not to name them at all, let the laws provide like you say. Id. at 55. Chairman Donald Thornhill responded that he wanted to ensure the term was broad, stating that [i]f you name one or two, that limits it to them. Id. The best evidence, of course, is not what various framers said to each other at various points during the process, but what they ultimately drafted together-the actual Constitution that the citizens of Georgia then ratified. The 1983 Constitution deleted the three examples of special schools, indicating that, to the extent those examples ever limited the scope of the term, it had now been broadened to thereby authoriz[e] the General Assembly to provide by law for the creation of any type of special school. Maj. Op. at 780.