Opinion ID: 2173186
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Applicability of the Establishment Clause

Text: The school districts claim that Act 372 is unconstitutional under the establishment clause of the first amendment to the federal constitution because the Act is a law respecting the establishment of religion. U.S.Const. amend. I. This clause was made applicable to the states in Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303-05, 60 S.Ct. 900, 903-04, 84 L.Ed. 1213, 1217-18 (1940). The United States Supreme Court has developed a three-part test to determine whether a particular state law violates the establishment clause. To pass constitutional muster, the statute under scrutiny must 1) reflect a clearly secular legislative purpose; 2) have a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion; and 3) avoid excessive government entanglement with religion. Meek v. Pittenger, 421 U.S. 349, 358, 95 S.Ct. 1753, 1760, 44 L.Ed.2d 217, 227-28 (1975), and cases cited therein. All three of the test's requirements must be met before the act in question will be permitted to stand. Despite the seeming clarity of this test, commentators and members of the Supreme Court itself have alluded to the difficulties encountered in its application. Prof. Henry J. Abraham had occasion to refer to . . . the difficulty, if not perhaps the utter impossibility, of creating and drawing a viable, predictable line between the permissible and the impermissible in the realm of the establishment clause in general and in that of the subsection of public and private education in particular. H. Abraham, Freedom and the Court, 279 (2d ed. 1972). Justice Powell stated in Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 760, 93 S.Ct. 2955, 2959, 37 L.Ed.2d 948 (1973), that the cases arising under the establishment clause have presented some of the most perplexing questions to come before this Court. Speaking for the Court in Walz v. Tax Commission of City of New York, 397 U.S. 664, 669, 90 S.Ct. 1409, 1411, 25 L.Ed.2d 697, 701-02 (1970), Chief Justice Burger observed: The course of constitutional neutrality in this area cannot be an absolutely straight line; rigidity could well defeat the basic purpose of [the religion clauses], which is to insure that no religion be sponsored or favored, none commanded, and none inhibited. The Court in Meek assessed the strengths and weaknesses of the test as follows: These tests constitute a convenient, accurate distillation of this Court's efforts over the past decades to evaluate a wide range of governmental action challenged as violative of the constitutional prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion, and thus provide the proper framework of analysis for the issues presented in the case before us. It is well to emphasize, however, that the tests must not be viewed as setting the precise limits to the necessary constitutional inquiry, but serve only as guidelines with which to identify instances in which the objectives of the Establishment Clause have been impaired. Meek v. Pittenger, supra, 421 U.S. at 358-59, 95 S.Ct. at 1760 (citations omitted). Before we proceed to analyze the instant statute in light of this test it is helpful to set forth the various objectives to which the establishment clause is addressed. In the first modern case involving the establishment clause, Everson v. Board of Education of Township of Ewing, 330 U.S. 1, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947), [3] Justice Black, writing for the five man majority, reviewed the history leading up to the adoption of the establishment clause and then set forth the following view as to its objective: The establishment of religion clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. . . . No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and State. 330 U.S. at 15-16, 67 S.Ct. at 511-512. This wall of separation requires that governmental action must be neutral in its effect upon religion and religious institutions. Thus in writing for the eight man majority in Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 83 S.Ct. 1560, 10 L.Ed.2d 844 (1963), Justice Clark explained: The place of religion in our society is an exalted one, achieved through a long tradition of reliance on the home, the church and the inviolable citadel of the individual heart and mind. We have come to recognize through bitter experience that it is not within the power of government to invade that citadel, whether its purpose or effect be to aid or oppose, to advance or retard. In the relationship between man and religion, the state is firmly committed to a position of neutrality. Id., 374 U.S. at 226, 83 S.Ct. at 1574. This view was echoed by Chief Justice Burger in Walz v. Tax Commission of City of New York, supra . There he wrote: The general principle deducible from the First Amendment and all that has been said by the Court is this: that we will not tolerate either governmentally established religion or governmental interference with religion. Short of those expressly proscribed governmental acts there is room for play in the joints productive of a benevolent neutrality which will permit religious exercise to exist without sponsorship and without interference. 397 U.S. at 669, 90 S.Ct. at 1411-1412. This concept of benevolent neutrality reflects a realization that the wall of separation does not require a degree of governmental detachment whereby the state becomes the adversary of religion or insensitive to its needs. As noted in Walz Separation in this context cannot mean absence of all contact; the complexities of modern life inevitably produce some contact and the fire and police protection received by houses of religious worship are no more than incidental benefits accorded all persons or institutions within a State's boundaries, along with many other exempt organizations. Id. at 676, 90 S.Ct. at 1415. Thus governmental action is not necessarily proscribed because it results in a benefit to a religious institution, provided the benefit is indirect and incidental. E.g., Everson v. Board of Education , supra. Moreover, the determination as to whether a benefit is indirect and incidental is principally a question of degree. Primary among the evils against which the Establishment Clause protects have been `sponsorship, financial support, and active involvement of the sovereign in religious activity.' Walz v. Tax Comm'n, supra, 397 U.S. at 668, [90 S.Ct. 1409;] Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, 403 U.S. at 612, [91 S.Ct. 2105.] Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, supra, 413 U.S. at 772, [93 S.Ct. at 2965.] The Court has broadly stated that [n]o tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they adopt to teach or practice religion. Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 16, [67 S.Ct. 504, 511, 91 L.Ed. 711.] But it is clear that not all legislative programs that provide indirect or incidental benefit to a religious institution are prohibited by the Constitution. See Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306, 312, [72 S.Ct. 679, 683, 96 L.Ed. 954;] Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, 403 U.S. at 614, [91 S.Ct. at 2112.] The problem, like many problems in constitutional law, is one of degree. Zorach v. Clauson, supra, 343 U.S. at 314, [72 S.Ct. at 684.] Meek v. Pittenger, supra, 421 U.S. at 359, 95 S.Ct. at 1760.
Proceeding from these basic principles we must examine the instant legislation in light of the three prong test that has been provided. Our first consideration is whether the statute possesses a clearly secular legislative purpose. Act 372 was the product of legislative concern for the welfare of school children travelling between home and school. Protecting the child against the hazards of traffic, the exposure to inclement weather and the designs of persons who would harm them are well recognized secular governmental interests. Providing bus transportation is obviously an appropriate means to accomplish these purposes. This Court has previously expressed the view that a legislative enactment providing for bus transportation for school children was a legitimate legislative action to respond to a real danger. Rhoades v. Abington Township School Dist., 424 Pa. 202, 226 A.2d 53, cert. denied, 389 U.S. 846, 88 S.Ct. 36, 19 L.Ed.2d 114, appeal dismissed, 389 U.S. 11, 88 S.Ct. 61, 19 L.Ed.2d 7 (1967). In view of the peril hovering over our streets and roads like a miasmatic fog, those charged with concern for the safety of children are duty bound to devise methods and means for saving the little travelers from harm on their way to and from school. Obviously the manner in which to provide these youthful wayfarers with a fair measure of protection against highway mishap is to keep them pedally off the roads and to transport them in vehicles so formidably constructed that they may ward off and parry, to the maximum extent possible, aggression from other vehicles. The school bus with its large heavy wheels and steel fabricated body seems to be the answer to the worrisome problem. Pennsylvania Secretary of Public Welfare, in testifying on House Bill 381 (later to become Act 91) before the Senate Education Committee, said: . . . school bus transportation clearly involves the safety and health of our children. The busing of school children is for their protection against hazards of the roadways and of traffic, against dangers occasioned by exposure to weather, against evils of child molestation. Rhoades v. Abington Township School Dist., supra at 206-07, 226 A.2d at 57 (footnote omitted). We are still of the view expressed in Rhoades and are satisfied that the current amendment does not in any way reflect upon this aspect of the analysis. [4] We note that the appellants have declined to challenge the constitutionality of the Act upon this ground and thus we need not be detained further as to this aspect of the analysis.
The second prong of the test presents a more difficult problem. Does Act 372 have a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion? We are satisfied that under the reasoning of the United States Supreme Court decisions in this area this statute does not have the proscribed primary effect. The appellees and to a large extent the Commonwealth Court, found that this issue was controlled by the United States Supreme Court's Everson opinion [5] and the opinion of this Court in Rhoades v. Abington Township School District, supra . Regrettably the resolution of this issue is not that simple. After Everson and Rhoades were decided, the United States Supreme Court has been required to discuss the considerations underlying the second prong of the test on a number of occasions. To the extent these subsequent decisions have refined the Everson holding, we are required to examine the instant Act accordingly. In Wolman v. Walter, 433 U.S. 229, 97 S.Ct. 2593, 53 L.Ed.2d 714 (1977), the Supreme Court was faced with a statute quite like Act 372 insofar as it provided that nonpublic school students should be transported at public expense during field trips for secular educational purposes. [6] At first blush, the Wolman field trips, would, like the Everson bus program seem to fall within that category of state aid that does not impermissibly aid religion. The United States Supreme Court looked farther into the case than the fact that both Everson and Wolman involved bus transportation of nonpublic school students. The Court in Wolman pointed out that: . . . although a trip may be to a location that would be of interest to those in public schools, it is the individual teacher who makes a field trip meaningful. The experience begins with the study and discussion of the place to be visited; it continues on location with the teacher pointing out items of interest and stimulating the imagination; and it ends with a discussion of the experience. The field trips are an integral part of the educational experience, and where the teacher works within and for a sectarian institution, an unacceptable risk of fostering of religion is an inevitable by-product. 433 U.S. at 253-54, 97 S.Ct. at 2608 (citation omitted). The teaching of Wolman is that Everson did not provide a blanket approval for all types of school bus programs. It is therefore apparent that we must look beyond the superficial similarity to ascertain the constitutionality of the legislation. It is presently urged that the instant legislation is defective in three respects. Appellants first claim that Act 372 in actual operation results in preferential benefits being accorded to nonpublic school students which are not given equally to public school students. Second, that the dominant beneficiaries of this Act are students attending religious schools, primarily Catholic schools, making the Act unconstitutional. Third, that the indirect effect theory of Everson is fallacious. These claims will be discussed seriatim.
Appellants advance the proposition that the establishment clause and United States Supreme Court rulings mandate that when the benevolently neutral state accords nonpublic schools and their pupils incidental benefits, these benefits must not be more extensive than the same benefits accorded public school students. The school districts point to language in Everson, for example, that the establishment clause requires the state to be a neutral in its relations with religion, and that the state's power is not to be used to favor religion or religious groups. Everson v. Board of Education, supra, 330 U.S. at 18, 67 S.Ct. 504. The school districts proceed to reason that they need not transport nonpublic school students out of the district. Pequea Valley School District poses and answers the following question: Can the State be said to have maintained its neutrality and not to have bestowed a favor upon sectarian institutions by virtue of the mandates of Act 372? Considering the irregular and unusual treatment conferred upon parochial school students by Act 372, the answer is obviously, no. Brief for Pequea Valley School District, Appellant, at 16 (emphasis in the original). The Pittsburgh School District points out that Everson upheld the bus fare program so as not to inadvertently prohibit New Jersey from extending its general State law benefits to all its citizens . . . . 330 U.S. at 16, 67 S.Ct. at 512 (emphasis added). Brief for School District of Pittsburgh, Appellant, at 20. Pittsburgh further notes that the United States Supreme Court has stressed in a number of cases that when religious institutions are benefited by state legislation, such benefits must be the incidental results of the legislation granting the benefits to all its citizens. See, e.g. Board of Education of Central School District No. 1 v. Allen, 392 U.S. 236, 238, 239, 241, 242, 243, 88 S.Ct. 1923, 20 L.Ed.2d 1060 (1968) (upholding New York law providing for the direct free loan of secular textbooks to all public and nonpublic school children in the state); Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 616, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 2113, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971) (striking down Pennsylvania and Rhode Island statutes providing state aid to nonpublic schools for teachers' salaries, and distinguishing such aid from constitutionally permitted state programs such as [b]us transportation . . . supplied in common to all students). Also, in Sloan v. Lemon, 413 U.S. 825, 93 S.Ct. 2982, 37 L.Ed.2d 939 (1973), in striking down a Pennsylvania statute providing tuition grants to parents of nonpublic school students, the United States Supreme Court stated: . . . The State has singled out a class of its citizens for a special economic benefit. Whether that benefit be viewed as a simple tuition subsidy, as an incentive to parents to send their children to sectarian schools, or as a reward for having done so, at bottom its intended consequence is to preserve and support religion-oriented institutions. We think it plain that this is quite unlike the sort of indirect and incidental benefits that flowed to sectarian schools from programs aiding all parents by supplying bus transportation and secular textbooks for their children. Such benefits were carefully restricted to the purely secular side of church-affiliated institutions and provided no special aid for those who had chosen to support religious schools. Yet such aid approached the verge of the constitutionally impermissible. Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 16, [67 S.Ct. 504, 511, 91 L.Ed. 711] (1947). In Lemon v. Kurtzman , we declined to allow Everson to be used as the platform for yet further steps in granting assistance to institutions whose legitimate needs are growing and whose interests have substantial political support. 403 U.S., at 624, [91 S.Ct., at 2117.] Again today we decline to approach or overstep the precipice against which the Establishment Clause protects. We hold that Pennsylvania's tuition grant scheme violates the constitutional mandate against the sponsorship or financial support of religion or religious institutions. 413 U.S. at 832-33, 93 S.Ct. at 2987 (emphasis in original). Appellants' arguments on this point are based on the supposition that Act 372 confers unequal benefits upon students attending nonpublic schools. This is not the case. The statute requires that nonpublic school students receive transportation opportunities identical to those accorded public school students with the proviso that the district is not required to bus any student farther than ten miles from the district's borders. Identical in this context means that public and nonpublic school students must be bused to their schools if such schools are within the ten mile limit. [7] School district boundaries are not sacrosanct; they are only flexible political lines drawn to accommodate the efficient administration of the educational system of this Commonwealth. It was clearly within the power of the General Assembly to enact the ten mile proviso in Act 372. The benefit sought to be conferred upon all students attending nonprofit schools was the right to free transportation to those schools. The maximum distance is the same for both public and nonpublic school students. The fact that the distance was computed in mileage and not confined to school district lines, we think, is of no constitutional consequence. On its face, then, because it confers its benefits equally upon students attending public and nonpublic schools, Act 372 does not violate the establishment clause by favoring a religious group. Additionally, appellants contend that Act 372 is unconstitutional in its application. The three school districts have adopted pupil busing policies that prohibit the transportation of public school students out of the district. Thus, they contend, by forcing them to bus nonpublic school students out of the district these nonpublic school students receive favors or benefits not given to public school students. This argument misinterprets the requirements of Act 372. As stated above, Act 372 requires the school district to bus nonpublic school students to their schools if the district also has decided to bus public school students to the public schools. The maximum permissible distance in both cases is up to ten miles outside the school district's boundaries. The fact that appellants have of their own volition decided not to bus public school students up to ten miles outside their districts has no bearing on the statutorily imposed duty of the districts to bus nonpublic school students to their nonpublic schools once the district has undertaken to transport public school children. [8] Appellants rely heavily upon two United States district court opinions to support their position that Act 372 fails this second prong of the establishment test. In Americans United for Separation of Church and State v. Benton, 413 F.Supp. 955 (S.D.Iowa, 1975) (three-judge court per 28 U.S.C. §§ 2281, 2284 (1970)), the court issued a permanent injunction against the use of public funds to implement amendments to the Iowa school transportation program. The statutory scheme in Iowa drastically differs from the one before us. By law Iowa forbade the extra-district transportation of public school students but allowed such transportation for nonpublic school students. Because of this legally mandated disparity in treatment, the court found the statute to violate the establishment clause. The Benton decision is clearly distinguishable and appellants' reliance upon it is unjustified. Appellants' reliance upon Members of Jamestown School Committee v. Schmidt, 427 F.Supp. 1338 (D.R.I. 1977) is also misplaced. In that case the court declared the statute unconstitutional after determining that it did not in fact provide transportation benefits to public and sectarian school children alike. The court viewed the statute as placing upon the taxpayers the requirement that they provide an additional option to the children attending out-of-district nonpublic  primarily sectarian  schools; an option not offered to public school students. [9] As we have previously indicated, Act 372 provides for equality of treatment in the transportation of public and nonpublic students.
Appellants contend that Act 372 is an artifice whereby students attending church-related schools are favored under the guise of benefitting all students. See, Meek v. Pittenger, supra. 421 U.S. at 365, 95 S.Ct. 1753; Sloan v. Lemon, supra, 413 U.S. at 832-33, 93 S.Ct. 2982. They stress, and we agree that of the nonpublic school students affected by this Act, the overwhelming majority attend church-related schools. [10] This special favor argument was dependent upon appellants' initial claim that Act 372 did not benefit public and nonpublic students alike. However, as we have expressed, this Act does not confer upon nonpublic school students greater transportation opportunities than it does upon public school students. Having determined that Act 372 provides identical benefit for all students, public as well as nonpublic, it is of no consequence that the nonpublic schools are predominantly church-related. This instant statute is readily distinguishable from the legislation that was found to be constitutionally infirm in Sloan. There, the Court held unconstitutional a statute whereby parents of children attending nonpublic schools were reimbursed by the state for a portion of the nonpublic school tuition. There was no comparable provision to benefit the parents of public school children. The Court distinguished such special class legislation from constitutionally permissible state aid benefitting all students: We think it plain that this is quite unlike the sort of indirect and incidental benefits that flowed to sectarian schools from programs aiding all parents by supplying bus transportation and secular textbooks for their children. Sloan v. Lemon, supra, 413 U.S. at 832, 93 S.Ct. at 2986. (emphasis in original). Consequently, we do not believe Act 372 runs afoul of the Court's ruling in the Sloan case. Meek v. Pittenger also does not support appellants' position. In that case the Court struck down a Pennsylvania law providing for the direct loan to nonpublic schools of instructional materials, [11] but upheld the direct loan to nonpublic school students of secular textbooks, even though 75% of the students in these nonpublic schools attended church-related institutions. Meek v. Pittenger, supra, 421 U.S. at 364, 95 S.Ct. 1753. The Court determined that the textbook provision was indistinguishable from the New York statute upheld in Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U.S. 236, 88 S.Ct. 1923, 20 L.Ed.2d 1060 (1968) [12] and concluded that Pennsylvania's textbook program was constitutional because the state `merely makes available to all children the benefits of a general program to lend school books free of charge.' Meek v. Pittenger, supra, 421 U.S. at 362, 95 S.Ct. at 1761. Additionally, the Court stated: It is, of course, true that as part of general legislation made available to all students, a State may include church-related schools in programs providing bus transportation, school lunches, and public health facilities  secular and nonideological services unrelated to the primary, religion-oriented educational function of the sectarian school. The indirect and incidental benefits to church-related schools from those programs do not offend the constitutional prohibition against establishment of religion. Id., at 364-65, 95 S.Ct. at 1763 (citations omitted).
Pequea contends that despite the Supreme Court's contrary holding in Everson v. Board of Education , the primary effect of the public transportation of parochial school students is to aid in the establishment of religion. Pequea argues that the Supreme Court's analysis of the New Jersey transportation statute in Everson was faulty and contains numerous fallacies and inconsistencies . . . which should preclude the Everson decision from serving as a binding legal precedent in the cases now before us. Brief for Pequea Valley School District, Appellant, at 19. Primarily, Pequea contends that the benefits conferred upon sectarian schools by virtue of mandatory busing laws, such as Act 372, are not as secondary or indirect as the majority in Everson would have it seem. Id., at 20. Although Pequea's arguments against following Everson's indirect effect theory have gained some support, [13] this Court is not at liberty to disregard a case so fundamental in the jurisprudence of the establishment clause. Indeed, the Everson opinion has been acknowledged in all recent cases arising under this clause. See, e.g., Meek v. Pittenger, supra, 421 U.S. at 359-60, 95 S.Ct. 1753; Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, supra, 413 U.S. at 770-75, 93 S.Ct. 2955; Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, 403 U.S. at 611-12, 91 S.Ct. 2105; Board of Education v. Allen, supra, 392 U.S. at 241-44, 88 S.Ct. 1923. Consequently, we must decline Pequea's call to renounce the Everson opinion. We are satisfied that the indirect and incidental benefit concept of Everson as refined by subsequent decisions, permits the type of governmental action which occurred here. Act 372 provides the parents of all school children with the assurance of the safety of their children in travelling to and from school. The fact that this benefit is enjoyed by the child attending parochial school as well as the public school youngster is not the type of benefit which offends the concept of neutrality mandated by the establishment clause. [14] As we noted in Rhoades, the cutting off church schools from these services, so separate and so indisputably marked off from the religious function, would make it far more difficult for the schools to operate. But such is obviously not the purpose of the First Amendment. Rhoades v. Abington Township School District, supra 424 Pa. at 212, 226 A.2d at 60.
The third and last prong of the religious establishment test under which the constitutionality of Act 372 must be measured, is the requirement that the Act not result in excessive government entanglement with religion. The requirement of no excessive entanglement was born of a desire to minimize government intrusion into the religious realm. L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 865 (1978). A finding of excessive entanglement, typically in the administration of the statute in question, can serve directly to invalidate a government program. Id., at 866. [15] The test we must employ in this area was formulated by Chief Justice Burger in Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, 403 U.S. at 615, 91 S.Ct. at 2112: In order to determine whether the government entanglement with religion is excessive, we must examine the character and purposes of the institutions that are benefited, the nature of the aid that the State provides, and the resulting relationship between the government and the religious authority. The state program must not require a comprehensive, discriminating, and continuing state surveillance to ensure that the state aid is used solely for secular purposes. 403 U.S. at 619, 91 S.Ct. at 2114. Nor must the aid require state inspection and evaluation of the religious content of a religious organization because this is the very sort of entanglement that the Constitution forbids. Id., at 620, 91 S.Ct. at 2115. The Court in Lemon v. Kurtzman struck down Pennsylvania and Rhode Island statutes providing cash grants to nonpublic schools in an effort to defray part of the costs of teachers salaries. The Court found that these statutes required excessive interference by the state into the activities of the religious school beneficiaries to ensure that the funds were spent for secular purposes only. Professor Tribe has suggested that the following forms of state aid do not infringe upon the entanglement concerns of the establishment clause: When states provide church-related schools with secular, neutral, or non-ideological services, facilities, or materials, such as bus transportation, school lunches, public health services, and secular textbooks supplied in common to all students, the resulting relatively mechanical contacts between church and state do not cross the blurred, indistinct, and variable barrier which the establishment clause interposes between the two. L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law, supra at 870, quoting Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, 403 U.S. at 614, 91 S.Ct. 2105. Accord, Wolman v. Walter, supra, 97 S.Ct. at 2601-05. In applying the test set forth in Lemon v. Kurtzman , we note that the primary and intended beneficiaries of Act 372 are the individual students and not the schools they attend. Any benefits derived from the Act by these schools are remote and incidental. The nature of the aid provided by Act 372 is in the form of free transportation of nonpublic school students to their schools. Unlike the facts in Lemon v. Kurtzman , here the religious institutions do not receive any funds under this Act. And, unlike the parents who received cash tuition reimbursements from the state in Sloan v. Lemon , here the parents do not receive any monetary benefit from the state. In the cases before us, the parents receive only the intangible benefit arising from the knowledge that their children are being safely transported to and from their schools. Additionally, this benefit is conferred without regard to whether or not the school attended has a religious mission. Finally, we must look at the resulting relationship between the government and the religious institution resulting from the state aid. As mentioned earlier, Wolman v. Walter [16] involved the constitutionality of field trip transportation at public expense for nonpublic school students who visited secular governmental, industrial, cultural, and scientific centers. The Court found that it is the individual teacher who makes a field trip meaningful . . . [A]nd where the teacher works within and for a sectarian institution, an unacceptable risk of fostering of religion is an inevitable byproduct. 433 U.S. at 253, 254, 97 S.Ct. at 2608. It was determined that this state program encouraged excessive entanglement because . . . the public school authorities will be unable adequately to insure secular use of the field trip funds without close supervision of the nonpublic teachers. This would create excessive entanglement: A comprehensive, discriminating, and continuing state surveillance will inevitably be required to ensure that these restrictions are obeyed and the First Amendment otherwise respected. Unlike a book, a teacher cannot be inspected once so as to determine the extent and intent of his or her personal beliefs and subjective acceptance of the limitations imposed by the First Amendment. These prophylactic contacts will involve excessive and enduring entanglement between state and church. Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. at 619, 91 S.Ct. 2105, at 2114, 29 L.Ed.2d 745. 433 U.S. at 254, 97 S.Ct. at 2609. Appellants would have us invalidate Act 372 because, like the field trips in Wolman, the nonpublic school controls the timing, frequency and destination of the busing. Appellants' arguments ignore the key fact upon which Wolman was decided: the required regulation of nonpublic school teachers. The Act before us does not in any manner require the state to engage in a comprehensive, discriminating and continuing surveillance of the nonpublic school teachers. The relationship that Act 372 creates between the state and nonpublic schools is no different than that existing under prior law. We upheld that relationship against constitutional attack in Rhoades v. Abington Township School District, 424 Pa. 202, 226 A.2d 53, cert. denied, 389 U.S. 846, 88 S.Ct. 36, 19 L.Ed.2d 114, appeal dismissed, 389 U.S. 11, 88 S.Ct. 61, 19 L.Ed.2d 7 (1967). The only contact between the state and the nonpublic schools is in the relatively sterile environment of calendar control. Under these circumstances we hold that the relationship between the state and the nonpublic schools created by Act 372 is not one that involves excessive state entanglement with the religious affairs of the nonpublic schools.
In summary, it is our view that Act 372 requires students attending public and nonpublic schools to be transported to their schools if such schools are within ten miles of the school district borders; the Act requires public and nonpublic school students to have equal transportation services; the Act does not confer greater benefits upon nonpublic school students than upon those attending public schools; that although students attending church-related schools are the predominant nonpublic beneficiaries of the Act, the transportation provided by the Act is totally unrelated to the religious mission of these schools; the primary beneficiaries in fact are the students and any remote benefit received by the nonpublic schools is too indirect and incidental to render the Act constitutionally infirm; and that the Act does not require excessive governmental entanglement with the affairs of the religious schools involved. Consequently, Act 372 on its face and as applied, does not violate the first amendment's prohibition against laws respecting the establishment of religion.