Opinion ID: 2509859
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Constitutional Context

Text: We should not stop with the dictionary definitions of isolated words, however, because it is important to view the words in the context of the legal document in which they appearanother indication of meaning available to any drafter of or citizen voting to ratify a Constitution. See Clarke, 199 Ga. at 164, 33 S.E.2d 425. One aspect of context is [t]he presumption . . . that the same meaning attaches to a given word or phrase wherever it occurs in a constitution. Id. Our current Constitution uses the adjective special about 19 times, always, it appears, with its ordinary meaning of simply different from the regular or general thing to which the special thing is being compared. See, e.g., Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. II, Sec. II, Par. V (discussing vacancies created when elected officials qualify for another office in a general primary or general election, or special primary or special election); Art. III, Sec. V, Par. XII (involving rejected bills being proposed again during the same regular or special session of the General Assembly). In particular, the special schools concept seems analogous to the longstanding special legislation provision, which deals with the relationship between laws that apply generally to the entire State and laws that are specific and limited. See Art. III, Sec. VI, Par. IV(a) (Laws of a general nature shall have uniform operation throughout this state and no local or special law shall be enacted in any case for which provision has been made by an existing general law. . . .). As discussed in Division I(c) above, in the early 1900's, this Court applied the general law provision to negate the General Assembly's efforts to create, by special and local laws, new school districts within counties, because there were general laws establishing the common county school systems and their school districts. See, e.g., Vaughn, 139 Ga. at 214-217, 76 S.E. 1004. What allows the General Assembly to create schools outside the general county school systems today is the provision of the 1983 Constitution granting the Legislature the specific authority to create special schools. Analysis of context also includes the concepts of expressio unius est exclusio alterius (the expression of one thing implies the exclusion of another) and expressum facit cessare tacitum (if some things are expressly mentioned, the inference is stronger that those not mentioned were intended to be excluded). Goddard v. City of Albany, 285 Ga. 882, 884, 684 S.E.2d 635 (2009). The majority's result is premised on its claim that the constitutional provision stating that [a]uthority is granted to county and area boards of education to establish and maintain public schools within their limits, Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. VIII, Sec. V, Par. I, gives local districts the  exclusive right to establish and maintain general K-12 public schools. Maj. Op. at 775 (emphasis added). But the Constitution does not say that local boards have exclusive authority over schools, even though the drafters of the 1983 Constitution undeniably knew how to use that modifier when exclusivity was intended. See, e.g., Art. VI, Sec. VI, Par. II (granting this Court exclusive appellate jurisdiction over certain types of cases). Most strikingly, the immediately preceding section of the Constitution's Education Article states that [t]he board of regents shall have the exclusive authority to create new public colleges, junior colleges, and universities in the State of Georgia, subject to approval by majority vote in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Art. VIII, Sec. IV, Par. I(b) (emphasis added). This broader constitutional context weighs strongly against the majority's position, and so the majority utterly ignores it. It discusses only the narrow context of the particular constitutional section at issue. See Maj. Op. at 775-76. That section is appropriate to considerbut it also does not support the majority's position. The majority correctly says that the special schools provision of Article VIII, Section V, Paragraph VII(a) of the 1983 Constitution must be read in conjunction with Paragraph I of that section, which states in full: School systems continued; consolidation of school systems authorized; new independent school systems prohibited. Authority is granted to county and area boards of education to establish and maintain public schools within their limits. Existing county and independent school systems shall be continued, except that the General Assembly may provide by law for the consolidation of two or more county school systems, independent school systems, portions thereof, or any combination thereof into a single county or area school system under the control and management of a county or area board of education, under such terms and conditions as the General Assembly may prescribe; but no such consolidation shall become effective until approved by a majority of the qualified voters voting thereon in each separate school system proposed to be consolidated. No independent school system shall hereafter be established. This provision is indeed illustrative, as is Paragraph II, which provides that  [e]ach school system shall be under the management and control of a board of education, the members of which shall be elected as provided by law, and Paragraph III, which provides that [t]here shall be a school superintendent of each system appointed by the board of education who shall be the executive officer of the board of education. (Emphasis added.) Paragraph VII (a), by contrast, reads: Special schools. (a) The General Assembly may provide by law for the creation of special schools in such areas as may require them and may provide for the participation of local boards of education in the establishment of such schools under such terms and conditions as it may provide; but no bonded indebtedness may be incurred nor a school tax levied for the support of special schools without the approval of a majority of the qualified voters voting thereon in each of the systems affected. Any special schools shall be operated in conformity with regulations of the State Board of Education pursuant to provisions of law. The state is authorized to expend funds for the support and maintenance of special schools in such amount and manner as may be provided by law. Read in context, Paragraphs I-III of this section of the Constitution plainly create a public education scheme in which every county, as well as every existing area and independent school system, has an elected board of education and a school superintendent who are charged with establishing, maintaining, managing, and controlling the public schools in their respective jurisdictions (limits). There is no restriction on the types of students these schools can serve or the types of subjects these schools can teach. The General Assembly and the local school systems have very limited authority to alter the school system structure; no new independent school systems can be established, and no consolidation of existing systems can be accomplished except by act of the General Assembly approved by the voters of the affected systems. But there is something else too. There is in Paragraph VII the grant of authority to the General Assembly to create not new school systems but new schools special schools in such areas as may require them. The General Assembly may provide for local boards to participate in establishing such schools, but it is not required to do so. Indeed, there is no requirement of local involvement of any kind, with the caveat that local school taxes and bond debt cannot be used to support a special school without local voter approval. Unlike with the school systems, there is no provision for these schools to have a school board or school superintendent, or to be managed or controlled by any local board; instead, special schools are to be operated under regulations issued by the State Board of Education. And just like the public schools establish[ed] and maintain[ed] by the local school systems, Paragraph VII places no restriction on the types of students these special schools can enroll or the types of subjects these schools can teach. So what is most fundamentally different specialabout the special schools? The text and context give no reason to think that it is their student bodies or the subjects they teach those students. What makes them unusual is that special schools can be created by the General Assembly independent of the local school systems, separate from the schools in those systems and the control and management of their local boards and superintendents. This meaning of special schools was indeed indicated as far back as the 1877 Constitution, which used the term not common schools to refer to the schools the General Assembly created by special or local law outside the scheme of common schools that were established in every county. See Division I(B) above. To argue against this meaning of special schools, the majority must depart from the constitutional text and context and natural and ordinary meaning and venture into constitutional history and technical meaning. But those ventures are no more successful.