Opinion ID: 1161864
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: State Funding Pre-Age Twenty-One, Federal Funding Post Age Twenty-One

Text: Within this separate appeal issue, the State Board supports its position of allowing school districts to spend federal funds for handicapped students post-twenty-first birthday on a per capita basis by use of language contained in the Title VI-B State Plan. The State Board, in responding to 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400, et seq. (1976 ed. & Supp. IV 1986), wrote a plan for obtaining federal funding for handicapped children by stating an intent to comply with the goals established in the EHA. These goals envision nationwide educational services for handicapped children from birth to age twenty-one. The regulations applying the language of 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400, et seq. (1976 ed. & Supp. IV 1986) also, however, encourage state and local educational agencies to go beyond the federal statutory minimums. The Title VI-B State Plan subjects local school districts to the following requirement: the same expenditure out of state and local funds for the handicapped child as the per pupil expenditure in the district, less capital outlay, debt service and funds targeted for special students. This is the excess costs requirement that school districts are only to use federal dollars to pay for the greater expense of educating handicapped students. (34 C.F.R. §§ 300.182, 300.183, 300.229 (1987)). Comparable services with state and local funds are to be administered to all handicapped students. (34 C.F.R. § 300.231 (1987)). The school districts cannot supplant federal funds money formerly spent from state and local resources on handicapped children. (34 C.F.R. § 300.230 (1987)). The Wyoming Constitution creates direct funding criteria based on age ranges in Wyo. Const. art. 7, § 9 by providing that [t]he legislature shall    create and maintain a thorough and efficient system of public schools, adequate to the proper instruction of all youth of the state, between the ages of six and twenty-one, free of charge   . (Emphasis added.) Justification for this defined age limitation can be found in the minutes of the Wyoming State Constitutional Convention. Mr. Burritt of Johnson County was concerned that many of the school districts in the various counties were obtaining more funds for the education of children within their borders than they were entitled to receive. He wanted to amend the proposed language of Wyo. Const. art. 7, § 9, stating that the language the legislature may require, by law, that every child of sufficient mental and physical ability shall attend public schools during the period between the ages of six and eighteen years    should only apply as to funding to those actually in attendance and enrolled. Journals and Debates of the Constitutional Convention at 186, 733 (1893) (emphasis added). In working as a county superintendent of education, he found that they [the school districts] had made their report, sending in the names of every person between the school ages, in that district, whether they attended school or not. Mr. Brown of Albany County stated: I think there is but one way to apportion this money among the schools, and that is the way provided by this section. Mr. Brown added: What reason can there be against the theory of counting every person of school age in the county? Mr. Brown concluded: We have, by law, now a way ascertaining the age of every person in the county who is entitled to it; our assessors are required to incorporate this in his report. Mr. Jeffrey commented: I have always been of the opinion that this matter of apportionment of school money properly belongs to the legislature, and the discussion here this morning tends further to prove it. Thereafter, an attempt to strike language in this section as to apportionment of funds to counties according to the number of children of school age,  was defeated. Journals and Debates of the Constitutional Convention, supra at 733-36 (emphasis added). Reading the minutes of the constitutional convention debates in conjunction with the Wyoming Constitution and W.S. 21-4-301, 21-4-302, and 21-2-501, establish the definition of child of school age to be five years of age to twenty-one years of age; thus, Wyoming is constitutionally obligated and statutorily directed to provide education to handicapped children only between five and twenty-one years of age. The dispository decision is not whether Tammy Ryan is eligible for federal aid as an adult twenty-one years old or older, but whether the Wyoming statutory scheme requires that the local school district provide extended educational services after the twenty-first birthday for the additional year for any student. Our responsibility under W.S. 21-4-301 is to determine if the hearing officer made an error of law in his decision. We conclude that the hearing officer improperly based his decision on the State Board's unauthorized expansion in the Title VI-B State Plan despite Wyoming Constitution and statute. Additionally, the hearing officer's finding, based on an incompleted IEP, to secure education for another year past the twenty first birthday is also wrong. Tammy Ryan used her previously developed IEP to support her contention that the School District's original intent was to educate her through her twenty-first year, thus allowing her to graduate from the School District's special education program. She contends that the School District's policy, prior to receiving the State Department of Education advice memorandum, was to allow the student to complete the school year rather than terminate the student upon reaching his twenty-first birthday. We first fail to see how this change in procedure as to Tammy Ryan's continued eligibility for educational services would affect her since she reached her twenty-first birthday prior to the beginning of the school year in question. Furthermore, the plan cannot be enforced if it lacks legislative justification as the School District's educational responsibility. It becomes illegal and unenforceable as legally unauthorized. K N Energy, Inc. v. City of Casper, 755 P.2d 207 (Wyo. 1988); Bright v. Los Angeles Unified School Dist., 18 Cal.3d 450, 134 Cal. Rptr. 639, 556 P.2d 1090 (1976). The hearing officer based his incomplete IEP assessment on the graduation policy statement issued by the School District. He states: The IEP goals for Tammy Ryan have not been met. She has not graduated under the graduation policy of the school district [just] because the Child Study Committee determined that Tammy has completed her individualized education program. Rather, she is considered to have exited services because she reached the twenty-one year old limit contained in the [new] policy. The language in both the revised policy regarding the graduation of handicapped students by the School District and the old policy effective prior to the State Department of Education ruling on the use of state and federal funds for handicapped students, had the same results in its application to Tammy Ryan. Whichever policy is applied, the language of the old policy: [A] handicapped student will be considered to graduate whenever the Child Study Committee determines that the student has completed his/her individualized education program or at the end of the school year following the student's 21st birthday. [Emphasis added.] or under the language of the new policy: In the case of extended educational services, a handicapped student will be considered to graduate whenever the Child Study Committee determines that the student has completed his/her individualized education program or upon reaching the age of 21. [Emphasis added.] the effect was the same because of the date of her birth. If a school year can be considered as complete when applied to a handicapped student or whether the student is on a full year or nine month program the day before a new school year begins then, Tammy Ryan, having exited services, satisfies the requirements of both policies. Based on the individual's 1987 continuing need for educational services and the hearing officer's interpretation of the School District's Graduation of Handicapped Students policy, the hearing officer's ruling went on further to imply that the School District had engaged in a contractual relationship with the Ryan family. He opines that: Tammy Ryan has a continuing need for educational services which has been recognized by the school district through the approval by the Child Study Committee of the services requested on her behalf. The school district has committed to the Ryans to offer educational and related services for Tammy after age twenty-one and up to the day of her 22nd birthday. Tammy Ryan asserts similar claims in her argument to this court. She notes that legislation enacted pursuant to the spending power is much in the nature of a contract   . Rowley, 458 U.S. at 204 n. 26, 102 S.Ct. at 3048 n. 26 (citing Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 17, 101 S.Ct. 1531, 1540, 67 L.Ed.2d 694 (1981)). Thus, the family maintains that the Title VI-B State Plan, formulated to secure the necessary federal funding to supplement and enhance the state and local funds already in place for use by the handicapped student in Wyoming, became an obligation on the part of the State as to providing further educational services to those handicapped students twenty-one years old. Again, we do not agree as a matter of state statutory constitution without regard to SBE Rule, § 74. The cited federal cases can be distinguished. Tammy Ryan quotes Georgia Ass'n of Retarded Citizens v. McDaniel, 716 F.2d 1565, 1578 (11th Cir.), reh'g denied 721 F.2d 822 (11th Cir.1983), cert. granted and judgment vacated 468 U.S. 1213, 104 S.Ct. 3581, 82 L.Ed.2d 880, remanded to and modified on other grounds 740 F.2d 902 (11th Cir.1984), cert. denied 469 U.S. 1228, 105 S.Ct. 1228, 84 L.Ed.2d 365 (1985) as her authority to this contention. McDaniel can be distinguished as it stands for the right of severely handicapped children to receive, at public expense, educational services in excess of the 180 days constituting a school year in Georgia. In that action, Georgia and its individual school districts potentially were to lose their federal EHA funding. This effect was considered because the State of Georgia refused to grant additional educational services to all handicapped students beyond 180 days regardless of individual need and whether or not the student's IEP had been met for that school year. We specifically reject the contention embodying a claim of ultra vires yet binding administrative agency contract. Regardless of what the State Superintendent or State Board indicated it would do concerning providing educational services to the age groups three to five and eighteen to twenty-one in the Title VI-B State Plan submitted, those agencies, as well as its citizens, are still subject to state law. We have said in Tri-County Elec. Ass'n, Inc. v. City of Gillette, 584 P.2d 995, 1006 (Wyo. 1978) that [i]t is the duty of courts to sustain the legality of contracts when fairly entered into, if reasonably possible to do so, rather than to seek loopholes and technical legal grounds for defeating their intended purpose. [Emphasis added.] This is an event, as described by the phrase if reasonably possible to do so, where a contract, even if formed, is null and void, for as we also said in Tri-County Electric, [i]t will not be supposed that the parties entered into a contract contemplating a contract amounting to a violation of the law   . Id. at 1006. It is a well-settled principle that [c]ontracts cannot be used as a `device to hoodwink the law.' Contractual provisions cannot rise above constitutional and statutory law. Id. at 1004 (quoting from Rural Electric Co. v. State Board of Equalization, 57 Wyo. 451, 120 P.2d 741, reh'g denied 57 Wyo. 451, 122 P.2d 189 (1942)). Tammy Ryan claims, as a jurisdiction factor, that an improper change in educational placement occurred, denying her access to further educational services from the School District. That is not this case. We recognize the procedural responsibility government has in protecting the student's rights to a free appropriate public education, which requires guidelines for her to question the purpose for any change in educational placement. However, placement issues ended with the twenty-first birthday. School districts like municipalities are creatures of the state and can exercise only those powers and functions that are conferred by statutory definition. K N Energy, Inc., 755 P.2d 207. So, even though Tammy Ryan had not then and may never complete the goals embodied in the School District's handicapped student graduation policy, the local education agency cannot be held responsible for non-achievement where state law provides the age limitation for school district continued education responsibility for any child. [17] To summarize, the Wyoming Constitution and statutes limit agency authority to promulgate rules or execute contracts and, if not authorized, the provisions are void. The mandate of the Wyoming Constitution for education in the public schools ends at the twenty-first birthday and the constitutional terminal has also served as the legislative omega. Lacking more, the School District was neither authorized nor required to expend its funds for adult education not statutorily justified. See Stewart By and Through Stewart v. Salem School Dist. 24J, 65 Or. App. 188, 670 P.2d 1048 (1983) as differing only as involving an under-age child, not an over-age adult.