Court Opinion

ID: 7822239
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 17:58:50.660669+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:30:46.045789
License: Public Domain

Darrell Hickman, Justice, dissenting. The issue in this case is narrow, but the choices are not good. The issue is whether parents of children in public schools may be prevented from sending their children to a school in another district when the accepting school district will not attempt to use the students to collect state aid. The majority has held they may not because to do so would deprive the first district of state aid it would otherwise receive. I would permit it simply because it is not forbidden by law and it is permitted by policy of the State Department of Education. I recognize that beneath this issue lies the question of what to do when a school district fails to provide an adequate or minimum opportunity for education; or possibly whether a small district, struggling to offer an adequate curriculum should lose students who simply want to attend school in a flush financial district. These, and perhaps other underlying considerations, exist in the two cases we have had between the Cord-Charlotte District and the Newark District. The problem of transferring students from one public district to another is not one simply or easily solved. When first confronted with the problem we probably made the wrong decision. In Bell v. Howard County Training School, 236 Ark. 742, 368 S.W.2d 266 (1963), we held both the sending and receiving district had to consent to the transfer, although the statute which governed the situation did not clearly require that. Later cases reinforced our decision. But those cases were, as was the first Cord-Charlotte case, concerning a receiving district claiming the student for purposes of receiving turnback money from the state. Cord-Charlotte School District No. 8 v. Independence County Board of Education, 271 Ark. 217, 608 S.W.2d 12 (1980). Newark does not seek to claim state aid for these students. They will merely accept them. According to the testimony of Truett Goatcher, a State Department of Education employee, that procedure is not prohibited by the Education Department regulations. Even so, the chancellor found that merely because school districts must provide a public school education to resident patrons (Ark. Stat. Ann. § 80-1501 [Supp. 1981]), it follows that parents must send their children to that school and no other. The majority relies on our first Cord-Charlotte case, and Ark. Stat. Ann. § 80-1528 (Supp. 1981), but those relate to the situation where the receiving district claims the students for purposes of state aid. This dispute, whether to accept these students, is a matter between the Newark School District and its patrons. Whether it can do so in fairness, without charge or for what charge, is not before us. (The nonresidents’ ad valorem taxes would, of course, continue to go to Cord-Charlotte). Furthermore, it is ignored that the parents who can afford to send their children to private or parochial schools will do so and Cord-Charlotte will still lose the money for those students; only those who cannot afford that luxury or choice will be forced to accept an educational opportunity they choose to reject. The majority decision not only imposes its judicial will on these parents, it protects and fosters an institution that may well not deserve protection and preservation. It is common knowledge some small districts in Arkansas are not providing a minimum educational opportunity. I do not imply that Cord-Charlotte is one of those districts, but it may well be — there is no evidence in that regard and that question is not directly involved. But the majority decision will not only prolong the existence of such districts, it may also promote mediocre public education. The State Department of Education has said it would not stop the transfer and neither would I.