Opinion ID: 200135
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: School district means a school district in the state.

Text: 34 The district court concluded that MSD was the sending district and thus liable for the special education services that Kimberli receives from the Pittsfield School District. MSD attacks the district court's determination that it is the sending district in three ways. First, MSD argues that it can no longer be considered the sending district because the 1998 amendments to section 193:12 establish that Kimberli is not a legal resident of New Hampshire. Second, MSD avers that it is not the sending district because, based on the new definition of legal resident contained in 193:12, Kimberli never resided in Manchester prior to her placement at the Brock Home. Third, it contends that Kimberli was not placed in the Brock Home within the meaning of the statute because her placement was not facilitated by the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services or by court order. 35 MSD's first two arguments, that the amendments to section 193:12 relieve it of liability, are without merit. MSD's attempt to make section 193:12, and the definition of legal resident for purposes of school attendance, the focal point of the financial liability determination for special education costs is a red herring. The definition of legal resident contained in section 193:12 does not affect the particular statutory provisions on which MSD's liability to Kimberli turns. 36 Section 193:12 makes provisions for where students may attend school. The 1998 amendments 17 to 193:12 provided that a child may not attend a school in a district in which he or she is not a legal resident except in defined circumstances. One of the defined circumstances, of particular relevance to Kimberli's situation, is that a child placed and cared for in a home for children may attend the public school in which the home for children is located. § 193:12 V. Thus, pursuant to section 193:12, Kimberli is appropriately attending school in the Pittsfield School District — an issue not in dispute. 37 To the extent that section 193:12 addresses financial liability rather than only the place of school attendance, it follows the framework developed in section 186-C:13. Paragraph X of section 193:12, also added in 1998, provided that [f]or the purpose of determining liability for a child placed or cared for in any home for children or health care facility, the provisions of RSA 193:29 shall apply. The legislature thus retained in 1998 the existing provision fixing the liability for the education of students, like Kimberli, placed in a home for children. Section 193:29, as already noted, provides that for any child placed in a home for children, the sending district shall make payment to the receiving district. Thus, whether the liability analysis begins with section 186-C:13 or section 193:12, it proceeds to section 193:29 and, eventually, to the definition of sending district. 38 MSD's further contention, that it is no longer the sending district because the new definition of legal resident contained in section 193:12 altered the meaning of resided for purposes of determining the sending district, is unavailing. According to MSD, because Kimberli's parent were never legal residents of Manchester, Kimberli could not have resided in Manchester prior to her placement. 39 Contrary to MSD's position, the definition of sending district explicitly accounts for a situation in which a child attends school in New Hampshire and the parents reside outside the state. In those cases, the sending district is the school district in which the child most recently resided prior to placement in the home for children. The New Hampshire Supreme Court has interpreted the phrase most recently resided to mean the district in which the child lived prior to his or her placement — regardless of legal residency. See In re Gary B., 124 N.H. 28, 466 A.2d 929, 932 (1983) (concluding in the context of 193:27 that resided refers to the place where the a child actually lived... rather than to legal residence or domicile). Accord New Hampshire Att'y Gen. Op. No. 85-17 (1985). 40 The legislature, when it amended the definition of sending district in 1998, kept the language in which a child most recently resided. The Legislature is presumed to have been cognizant of the judicial interpretation placed upon the phrase most recently resided and to have adopted that construction, in the absence of any change in the phraseology used or other competent evidence of a different purpose. Waterman v. Town of Lebanon, 78 N.H. 23, 95 A. 657, 658 (1915); see also In re Cigna Healthcare, Inc., 146 N.H. 683, 777 A.2d 884, 889 (2001). If the New Hampshire legislature had intended to alter the law with regards to liability determinations, as it did for attendance, it would have amended the language of the statute to reflect such a change. It did not. 41 MSD's third argument, that Kimberli was not placed in the Brock Home within the meaning of the statute because her placement was not facilitated by the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services or by court order, is not supported by the statute or the record. MSD grounds its argument in the 1998 amendments to section 193:27 that inserted into the definition of sending district the phrase the home of a relative or friend in which the child is placed by the department of health and human services or a court of competent jurisdiction following a home for children. MSD argues that the phrase placed by the department of health and human services or court of competent jurisdiction now modifies the phrase home for children. 42 MSD's suggested interpretation is not supported by the structure or language of the statute. As noted by the district court, the use of commas to separate the phrases plainly shows an intent by the legislature to limit the placed-by-the-state qualifier to the home of a relative or friend. The state-involved limitation on the placement of a child with a relative or friend was apparently intended to curb potential abuse of the educational system. When children are placed with a relative or friend other than by state or court direction the parents may simply be sending their children off to cities or towns with better schools so as to obtain a public education believed to be superior to that available in the parents' hometown. In that instance, the district where the parents reside should not be, (and pursuant to 193:27 is not), financially liable for the child's education and thus would not qualify as the sending district. In contrast, placing a child in a home for children is not likely to be a subterfuge for securing whatever extra educational benefits the home's school district may provide. And to require a child living at such a home to attend school elsewhere, perhaps at a great distance, could be either impossible or enormously difficult. 43 While, therefore, the clause cited by MSD calling for departmental or court placement does not apply to minors like Kimberli placed in a home for children, we note that the instant record reveals that the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services was involved with Kimberli's placement in the Brock Home. A file memorandum from the Moore Agency, dated May 22, 1989, states that Kimberli was placed in the Brock Home by her parents[ ] following the recommendation of State Welfare. Paula M., in a letter to the New Hampshire Bureau of Special Education Services dated May 26, 1992, states that she and Kimberli's father placed Kimberli at the Brock Home with the assistance of the Department of Children and Youth Services. Further, Kimberli was and is a client of the Moore Center Services, Inc., an agency which is part of the State of New Hampshire's service delivery system for persons with development disabilities, which has funded and supervised Kimberli's placement since April 11, 1989. Thus, however one reads the statute, Kimberli's placement in a home for children was closely under the auspices of the state. 44 Given New Hampshire's statutory framework, we find ourselves in accord with the rulings of the district court. The 1998 amendments to the definition of legal resident for purposes of school attendance in no way served to relieve MSD of its financial responsibility under New Hampshire's statutory scheme. Our statutory interpretation and that of the district court comport with that of the NHDOE, the state agency responsible for the administration of the state laws in question. See N.H.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 186-C:3-a. In 1992, the NHDOE determined that Manchester was the district of liability and financially responsible for the costs of Kimberli's special education. It found that [t]he most recent residence of Kimberli other than a licensed home was 213 Pine Street, Manchester, where she lived with her parents from birth to April 11, 1989. MSD concedes that it did not, as it could have, appeal from this decision to the State Board of Education or to a court of competent jurisdiction. Consequently, the NHDOE's decision became a final order and is binding upon MSD. 45 Not only has there been no change in the New Hampshire statutory landscape that would alter the NHDOE's original determination, MSD has not proffered any relevant change in circumstances since the NHDOE's 1992 decision that would entitle it to a different finding. MSD, moreover, is also now collaterally estopped from challenging the NHDOE's 1992 district of liability determination. Under New Hampshire law, administrative decisions are subject to the doctrine of collateral estoppel. Findings of an administrative agency may be given preclusive effect. Day v. N.H. Ret. Sys., 138 N.H. 120, 635 A.2d 493, 495 (1993). Pursuant to this doctrine, MSD is not now free to challenge NHDOE's finding, made a decade ago, that the district in which Kimberli most recently resided prior to her placement in the Brock Home was Manchester. The doctrine of res judicata has also been applied to administrative decisions in New Hampshire. Morin v. N. Heating & Plumbing Co., 113 N.H. 431, 309 A.2d 153, 155 (1973). Under this doctrine, MSD is barred from challenging the NHDOE's conclusion that it was the district of liability for the costs associated with Kimberli's special education.