Opinion ID: 2509859
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: References to Special Schools in Statutes and Case Law

Text: 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.