Opinion ID: 1161742
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: termination of educational eligibility at age twenty-one

Text: This subject is settled by this court's decision in Ryan, 764 P.2d 1019 (Wyo. 1988). School District conduct and funding of post-twenty-first birthday education can be undertaken by neither the School District nor the state educational agencies as a public educational responsibility under present statutes or constitutional criteria. We have clearly defined and delineated the public educational function by age limitation as may be differentiated from higher education, vocational rehabilitation, maintenance, or medical care responsibility for the individual which would come within social services or other governmental agency responsibility. Neither the judiciary can nor the legislature has expanded public education past the intrinsic responsibility in age for what was adopted in the state constitution. The present finite limitation of public education ends with the twenty-first birthday. Adams Central School Dist. No. 090, Adams County v. Deist, 214 Neb. 307, 334 N.W.2d 775, opinion supplemented by 215 Neb. 284, 338 N.W.2d 591 (Neb.), cert. denied 464 U.S. 893, 104 S.Ct. 239, 78 L.Ed.2d 230 (1983). Cf. Helms v. Independent School Dist. No. 3 of Broken Arrow, Tulsa County, Okl., 750 F.2d 820 (10th Cir.1984), cert. denied 471 U.S. 1018, 105 S.Ct. 2024, 85 L.Ed.2d 305 (1985), required equivalent years of educational opportunity.