Opinion ID: 1330397
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Safe Schools Actas Applied to C.E.A.

Text: The question now arises, if a child may constitutionally be removed from a regular school setting for 12 months, what then? Is the child to be left alone by the State with no obligation to engage in any sort of educational enterprise? What will be done to maximize the likelihood that the child keeps current with academic basics so that he or she can return to regular school not irreparably behind his or her peers? These are difficult questions. The practical answers to these questions and the dilemmas they present will require experience, expertise, and experimentation. It is not the business of this Court to make detailed policy or prescriptions. However, in reviewing the circuit court's decision in the case of C.E.A., we can address the question of implementing the Safe Schools Act in a fashion that fully complies with the State's constitutional responsibility to provide safe and secure educational opportunities and services to all of the children of our State. Conscious of our limited but constitutionally necessary role, we proceed. We begin by reiterating the narrow issue which was actually decided by the circuit court. The circuit judge held that the Board's proposal to provide C.E.A. with four hours a week of state-funded instruction at a school building after regular school hours would satisfy the Board's constitutional obligation to provide basic educational opportunities and services to C.E.A. Moreover, C.E.A.'s parents had to provide transportation, and if C.E.A. did not take advantage of the Board's proposal, the Board's responsibility to C.E.A. was ended. The appellee Cathe A. has not challenged the circuit court's ruling as to the constitutional adequacy of the opportunities and services contained in the Board's proposal, so this Court need not and does not address that issue. However, the Board contends that the circuit court was wrong in requiring the Board to provide any state-funded educational opportunity to C.E.A. We emphasize that at no time has the Board contended that the safety of a home instruction or other after-school teacher for C.E.A. is or was an issue. The sole issue presented to the circuit judge was whether the Board could constitutionally make providing an instructional program for C.E.A. contingent upon the child's parents reimbursing the Board for the cost of the program. The circuit court concluded that the ability or willingness of C.E.A.'s parents to reimburse the State for the cost of state-provided educational opportunities and services for a child who is removed from school pursuant to the Safe Schools Act was an impermissible factor in determining whether such a child is provided educational opportunities and services. We do not discern that a compelling state interest is furthered in a narrowly tailored fashion by a policy of providing educational opportunities and services to children who are removed from school because of the Safe Schools Act only if their parents will reimburse the cost of the educational opportunity. Where the State is able to safely provide reasonable basic educational opportunities and services to a child who has been removed from regular school under the provisions of the Productive and Safe Schools Act, W.Va.Code, 18A-5-1a(g) [1995] there is no compelling state interest in a policy of providing the opportunities and services only if the child's parents are able and willing to reimburse the state for the cost. A child's constitutional, fundamental right to an education includes the right to be provided with educational opportunities and services (which may be restricted or limited by narrowly tailored restrictions necessary to achieve a compelling state interest) at public expense, without regard to the child or parents' ability or willingness to reimburse the state for the cost of the educational opportunities and services. [7] We agree with the circuit judge that equal protection concerns undermine the constitutional legitimacy of the State's making such a distinction in providing educational opportunities and services. The crafting of detailed procedures and standards for implementing the State's compelling interest in ensuring safe schools, while providing educational opportunities and services for all of our State's children as required by our Constitution, is a matter properly left to the legislative and executive processes. [8] However, such procedures and standards must pass the strict scrutiny and narrow tailoring that is required by our constitutional provisions governing the right to education. In applying the mandate of the Safe Schools Act, the State Superintendent of Schools issued a memorandum on May 24, 1995, articulating a policy that a child who is removed from the classroom setting pursuant to the Safe Schools Act is not entitled to any form of state-funded instruction during the pendency of their expulsion. (The memorandum also stated that local educational agencies may in their discretion provide state-funded educational opportunities and services to these children.) We are not unmindful of the enormous demands upon our State's educational system. We admire and praise the thousands of dedicated teachers, administrators, and service personnel who meet those demands with energy and creativity every day. Recognizing that our decision today will do nothing to reduce those demands, we must nevertheless conclude that the broad and sweeping policy set forth in the memorandum promulgated by the State Superintendent of Schools is incompatible with the place of education as a fundamental, constitutional right in this State. A policy to the effect that the State has no responsibility to provide any state-funded educational opportunities and services to any children who are expelled under the Productive and Safe Schools Act, W.Va.Code, 18A-5-1a(g) [1995] is constitutionally infirm because the State has not shown that applying such a limitation to all such children under all circumstances is reasonably necessary and narrowly tailored to further the compelling state interest in safe and secure schools. [9] For the foregoing reasons, the circuit court's judgment that under the facts presented by this case, the provision of basic educational opportunities and services to a child expelled pursuant to the Safe Schools Act could constitutionally not be made dependent upon the parent's ability or willingness to reimburse the State is affirmed. For a child who is not permitted to attend normal school pursuant to the provisions of the Safe Schools Act, the extent and details of the State's constitutional responsibility to provide other state-funded educational opportunities and services to the child must be determined on a case-by-case basis, based on the unique circumstances of the individual child. A primary consideration in making such a determination must be the protection of students, teachers and other school personnel; another legitimate concern is the need to effectively deter other students from engaging in prohibited conduct. We recognize that in extreme circumstances and under a strong showing of necessity in a particular case, strict scrutiny and narrow tailoring could permit the effective temporary denial of all State-funded educational opportunities and services to a child removed from regular school under the Productive and Safe Schools Act, W.Va.Code, 18A-5-1a(g) [1995], particularly when the safety of others is threatened by the dangerous actions of a child, and where the child is unwilling or unable to utilize educational opportunities and services that are consistent with protecting the safety of others. See Phillip Leon M. v. Greenbrier County Board of Education, 199 W.Va. 400, 410, 484 S.E.2d 909, 919 (1996) (McHugh, J., concurring, in part, and dissenting, in part). [10] Thus, to the extent that the opinion in Phillip Leon M. implies that in every case in which a student is expelled from school for one year for possessing a firearm or other deadly weapon on school property, the State must provide an alternative education[,] [11] Phillip Leon M., 199 W.Va. at 410, 484 S.E.2d at 919, (McHugh, J., concurring, in part, and dissenting in part), that opinion is hereby modified. We recognize that there may be a point when a student's actions are so egregious, that in order to protect teachers and other school personnel [and, we add, other students], the State may determine that there is a compelling state interest not to provide an alternative to that particular expelled student. Phillip Leon M., 199 W.Va. at 409, 484 S.E.2d at 919, (McHugh, J., concurring, in part, and dissenting, in part). However, the facts in the instant case and common sense suggest that in all but the most extreme cases the State will be able to provide reasonable state-funded educational opportunities and services to children who have been removed from the classroom by the provisions of the Safe Schools Act in a safe and reasonable fashion. [12] Under such circumstances, providing educational opportunities and services to such children is constitutionally mandated.