Court Opinion

ID: 9531269
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:09:24.061884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:23.384436
License: Public Domain

RABINOWITZ, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
Article VII, section 1 of the Alaska Constitution provides in pertinent part:
The legislature shall by general law establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State .. ..
I read this constitutional mandate as imposing upon appellees the obligation to supply secondary schools to the rural communities of Alaska.1 My reasons for differing with the majority’s construction of article VII, section 1 are as follows:
Appellants contend that their right to education encompasses the right to attend public secondary school in the communities in which they reside. In support of this argument, appellants emphasize the words “public schools open to all children of the State”. The crux of appellants’ argument is that the word “open” in article VII, section 1 of the Alaska Constitution means not only free of charge,2 as conceded by appellees, but also access to a school near the child’s home. At present, secondary school age children from rural Alaska villages must, for the most part, travel hundreds of miles to attend school. For example, children from Aniak, a village of 205 persons located eighty air miles from Bethel, attend high school in five different cities: Anchorage, Bethel, Kodiak, Mc-Grath and Palmer. Similarly, seven children from Barrow, population 2104, travel 675 miles to attend secondary school in Tok, population 214. Appellants contend that this pattern violates the constitutional command that schools be “open” to them. The argument is succinctly stated in appellants’ brief:
School attendance by [appellants] is conditioned on their giving up, for many months during this critical period of their development, contacts with their families, their villages, and their cultural heritage. They must live in dormitories or board with strangers in an alien environment hundreds of miles from home. A school for which ‘tuition’ is forfeiture of home and family life . . . cannot be deemed an ‘open’ school.
To determine the meaning of article VII, section 1, and particularly the substantive content of the word “open”, I agree with the majority that examination of the evolution of public education in Alaska and the *810intent of the framers of the Alaska Constitution is apposite. While prior practice and the framers’ purposes are not necessarily conclusive,3 an historical perspective is essential to an enlightened contemporary interpretation of our constitution. I also consider it necessary to evaluate the current operation of Alaska’s system of public education in order to ascertain whether it comports with what I view as the command of article VII, section 1 of the Alaska Constitution.
My analysis of essentially the same historical data reviewed by the majority leads me to the conclusion that there exists little guidance in interpreting article VII, section 1, other than certain indications that the provision was intended to make Alaska’s public schools available to Native Alaskans on the same terms as non-Native Alaskans.4 This in turn, raises the question of whether 'Alaska’s system of public education is “open”-, in the constitutional sense, to appellants.
The delivery of secondary education to the children of the State of Alaska has been shaped by the pre-statehood pattern of high school locations. High schools in incorporated cities enrolled both Native and non-Native students who lived in these populated areas. Secondary education for students living in rural areas of the state was limited or nonexistent. In 1947, the BIA had converted a World War II navy base near Sitka to a boarding high school, called Mt. Edgecumbe, for Native students from rural areas. Rural Native students were presented with the choice of either staying at home and doing without secondary education or leaving home and attending Mt. Edgecumbe. Over the years, Mt. Edgecumbe’s enrollment grew, and when enrollment exceeded the school’s capacity, the BIA, of necessity, began admitting Native Alaskans to Indian boarding schools in other states. Hundreds of Alaska Natives entered boarding schools in Chemawa, Oregon and Chilocco, Oklahoma.5
Immediately following statehood, Alaska educators had two major objectives: namely, to provide public education in rural Alaska, thereby returning the Natives to the state for their secondary education; and to consolidate State schools and BIA schools into a single school system operated by the State of Alaska.6 It was recognized that the attainment of both objectives would require considerable time and substantial State expenditures,7 but neither objective has been fully achieved even now, over fifteen years after statehood.
The record before us amply documents the shift in secondary school enrollment of Native Alaskans from BIA-operated, out-of-state boarding schools to schools within Alaska. The State’s Boarding Home Program, started in the mid-sixties, allows rural students to board in private homes in Alaska urban areas and attend the local high school. Over a thousand *811students participated in the program during the 1972-73 school year. In addition, ASOSS has opened three regional secondary schools, in Nome, Kodiak, and Bethel, each of which has boarding facilities, thus enabling several hundred rural students to attend high school closer to their villages.8 Nonetheless, the fact remains that of the 145 rural communities that appellants’ complaint alleged had no secondary schools, or daily transportation to such schools, appel-lees admit that no secondary programs or facilities are being provided in 108 communities.9
Accurate statistics as to the number of secondary school age students who cannot attend school without living away from home are unavailable,10 but appellants estimate that their class includes 3000 Alaska Natives. Because members of the class reside “more than two miles from either a public school or a route on which transportation is provided by the school authorities”,11 they are not subject to the compulsory school attendance statute.12 Therefore, a number of appellants do not attend secondary school, although a few have continued their education through correspondence study.13
The named appellants, and most of the purported class, reside in the state-operated school district, in which the responsibility for supplying public education rests upon ASOSS. In the answer to appellants’ complaint, ASOSS asserts that it is moving to provide secondary school programs in predominantly Native rural communities, but that construction of high school facilities can proceed only after the legislature has authorized issuance of bonds to finance the construction. Robert L. Thomas, Deputy Commissioner of Education, states in his affidavit that it is the current policy of the Alaska Department of Education to establish secondary schools in remote areas “where it is educationally and economically feasible to do so.” Thomas’ affidavit further avers that
some 20.3 million dollars from ch. 170 SLA 1970 and another 16 million dollars from ch. 195 SLA 1972 are being spent to provide secondary schools in remote areas.
I think it also appropriate to take judicial notice that at least a portion of the $40.3 million bond issue authorized by the legislature in 197414 will be used for rural secondary school construction.
Notwithstanding these expenditures, secondary schools are simply nonexistent in many villages in the immense state-operated school district. Where secondary schools are not provided, the student is given the choice of entering ASOSS’s dormitory or boarding home programs or engaging in correspondence study. According to the affidavit of James M. Harper, Director of the Division of Regional Schools and Boarding Home Programs, if a student elects to attend a school administered by ASOSS and indicates no preference for a particular school, ASOSS places the student in the school nearest the stu*812dent’s community of residence. No student is denied the opportunity to attend a secondary school, and furthermore, when a child leaves his home to attend school elsewhere, all the educational costs, including tuition, transportation, and boarding costs, are paid with public funds.15
Appellees state that they are willing to provide secondary education in accordance with article VII, section 1 of the Alaska Constitution, but deny that Alaska’s constitution compels them to provide secondary schools in appellants’ communities of residence. I disagree.
As I have previously stated, article VII, section 1 of the Alaska Constitution is an explicit directive to the legislature:
The legislature shall by general law establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State
I fail to see how a public school system can be truly “open” to its students where school is not reasonably accessible to them. The word “open” must be construed not only as meaning free of charge, but also as encompassing a right of reasonable access.16 I conclude on this record that appellants have been denied reasonable access to secondary schools because they must live away from home throughout the school year in order to attend school. For in my view, article VII section 1 of the Alaska Constitution compels the state of Alaska to provide secondary schools in rural communities, so that, insofar as possible, secondary school age students can have reasonable access to and attend school without living away from home in order to gain an education.
The significance of education in American society was well stated by the United States Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954):
Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal *813instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.17
The Supreme Court of the United States recently reaffirmed its statements in Brown, “expressing an abiding respect for the vital role of education in a free society”.18 Yet, under Alaska’s present system of delivering secondary education, hundreds of eligible students are unable to attend high school and therefore fail to complete their public education. I do not believe that this egregious situation should be perpetuated.19
Under article VII, section 1 of the Alaska Constitution, the legislature must establish and maintain “public schools open to all children of the State”. In AS 14.03.-070, the legislature has provided in part:
A child . . . who is under the age of 20 and has not completed the 12th 'grade, is of school age.
This statute reflects the judgment that a child should be permitted to complete the twelfth grade in the public schools. This policy would be effectuated by construing “public schools” in article VII, section 1 as including secondary schools. At minimum, local secondary schools should consist of an appropriate school facility staffed by a qualified instructor.20 I can see no legal impediment to the utilization of correspon*814dence course materials, especially for specialized courses, so long as a qualified teacher is available to supervise the correspondence study.21
Appellees have advanced three purportedly legitimate justifications for their failure to furnish local secondary schools in appellants’ communities: the possible lower quality of instruction in small high schools; the greater cost of providing secondary schools in small, relatively isolated, rural communities; and the need for legislative and administrative discretion in providing public education. None of these justifications can, in my view, defeat the imperative of article VII, section 1 of the Alaska Constitution. Nevertheless, these three state interests merit careful consideration.
While there is some debate regarding the pedagogical efficacy of small high schools, “[t]he small high school program today need no longer be equated with an inferior education.”22 In fact, an Alaska State Board of Education publication, The Big Picture on Small Schools, contains the following observation:
Advances in educational technology over, the past decade have shown that the small secondary school need no longer be considered as a scaled down, limited version of a larger high school. Educational television, programmed texts, and a proliferation of media and materials have made the small high school, in many ways, superior to its large counterpart.23
Further, it would be difficult for a system of small, rural high schools to perform more poorly than the present system. Using modest criteria of academic success, Dr. Judith Kleinfeld found that between 67 and 96 percent of the boarding students in her three-part sample “failed”.24 Moreover, provision of high schools in appellants’ communities will allow hundreds of potential students, who are now not in school, to resume their education.
Regarding the troublesome issue of the costs of providing appellants with local secondary schools, it is well settled that the state cannot limit or abridge constitutional rights simply as a means of saving money.25 However, the conclusion that a massive school construction program is required may be at variance with the facts. The Alaska Department of Education’s Small Secondary Schools Administrative Manual indicates that
[i]n many instances, no special or additional school facilities will be required to provide a secondary program at the community level. Existing elementary *815schools usually can house a few additional pupils (secondary pupils) who desire to continue their education in their home communities.

[Where] additional instruction spaces . . . have to be provided [,] [djepending on a variety of factors, the additional facilities could be a single classroom adapted to individualized instruction, or it could be more comprehensive and provide for a variety of educational experiences.26
Where new school facilities are required, an orderly construction program would be mandated. Once the small, rural high schools are in place, the operating costs for local secondary schools will, in all. likelihood, be less than the comparable per student cost of boarding facilities, primarily because room and board costs will be borne by the student’s family.27
Appellees have forcefully argued throughout this litigation that under article VII, section 1 of the Alaska Constitution, it is the legislature that is given complete authority to regulate the nature of Alaska’s public education system, either directly or through delegated powers.28 Appellees further argue that since the legislature has not mandated that the public school system include secondary schools in appellants’ communities, it is not the proper role of the courts to usurp the legislative prerogative. While I am mindful of the limited judicial expertise in the field of public education, appellees’ concept of judicial deference is so broad that, if adopted, it would cause this court to abdicate its constitutional role. Under article IV, section 1 of the Alaska Constitution, the “judicial power” of the State is vested in Alaska’s courts. The courts are charged with the solemn responsibility for interpreting and construing Alaska’s laws, including our constitution, by which we are all bound. Under Alaska’s constitution, as the highest court of the State of Alaska, the Supreme Court of Alaska is the final arbiter of the meaning of Alaska’s constitution. Rather than a “radical invasion by the judiciary into an area specifically delegated by” article VII, section 1, to the legislature, I believe and would characterize our task as one of delineation of the constitutional perimeters of the educational. delegation to Alaska’s legislature. To illustrate the point, assume that the legislature decreed that all school age children in Alaska must, for nine months a year, attend public schools located only in Fairbanks, Alaska. Is there any doubt that such a legislative enactment is violative of article VII, section 1 of Alaska’s constitution ?
The legislature, as well as the executive and the judiciary, must operate within constitutional constraints. Thus, upon consideration of the precise language of the Alaska Constitution and the voluminous record in the case at bar, I have concluded that the word “open” in article VII, section 1 contemplates a right of reasonable access on the part of rural secondary school age children to schools in their home communities.29 To hold otherwise *816results in an interpretation which deprives a significant number of Alaska’s school age population of their constitutionally guaranteed right to a public education. It is my belief that a construction which denies Alaska’s children reasonable access to public secondary schools renders the provisions of article VII, section 1 of Alaska’s constitution illusory.30
In reaching the conclusion that the right to education includes a right to local secondary schools under article VII, section 1 of the Alaska Constitution, I wish to emphasize that my construction would not preclude making available alternative methods of education to secondary school age children. My analysis of “open” as employed in article VII, section 1 of the Alaska Constitution does not reflect my adoption of any particular theory of education. For I am fully cognizant that an essential concomitant of reasonable access to public education is the goal of ensuring that Alaska’s public education, regardless of where or by what methods it is made available, is of the highest quality.

. This court has recognized the dual aspect of article VII, section 1 of Alaska’s constitution in our opinions in Breese v. Smith, 501 P.2d 159 (Alaska 1972), and Macauley v. Hildebrand, 491 P.2d 120 (Alaska 1971). As construed in these cases, this provision of Alaska’s constitution places a duty upon the State Legislature and, at the same time, it confers upon Alaska school age children a right to education.

. Under AS 14.03.080(a), a school age child is entitled to attend public school without payment of tuition. For secondary school age students living in the state-operated school district, ASOSS, through its board of directors, must
pay tuition and boarding or transportation costs of secondary school students in cases in which the establishment of state-operated secondary schools is unsound for economic or educational reasons.
AS 14.08.090(14).

. See Baker v. City of Fairbanks, 471 P.2d 386, 396 (Alaska 1970).

. The proceedings of the Alaska Constitutional Convention do not reveal the source of the language contained in article VII, section 1. Moreover, the convention did not debate the meaning of the word “open”.
It is likely that article VII, section 1 of the Alaska Constitution, which mandates “a system of public schools open to all children of the State”, is based on article IX, section 9.01 of the Model State Constitution, which provides for “a system of free public schools open to all children in the state”. Similar language is found in article VIII, section 147 of the North Dakota Constitution and article 10, section 1 of the Utah Constitution.

. O. Ray, Alaskan Native Education: An Historical Perspective 17 (October 1973) (unpublished report prepared for the Alaskan Native Needs Assessment in Education Project).

. See generally The Governor’s Committee on Education, An Overall Education Plan for Rural Alaska ii-iv (October 1, 1968 rev.).

. Federal funds still support a number of schools in Alaska, even though many former BIA schools have been transferred from federal to State operation. Transitional federal funding has been provided under the terms of the Johnson-O’Malley Act of 1934, as amended. 25 U.S.C. § 452 (1963).

. Alaska State Board of Education, The Big Picture on Small Schools 2 (1972).

. The 145 communities mentioned in appellants’ complaint had the following characteristics : 1.) a predominantly (fifty percent or more) Native population and 2.) more than eight children eligible to attend elementary and secondary school. Appellees’ answer claims that secondary programs are being conducted in twenty communities and were scheduled to commence in seventeen others during fiscal year 1974.

. The answers to interrogatories reveal that ASOSS does not have information concerning the number of school age children living within its district, the number of secondary school age children that are unable to attend school without living away from home, the number of children from its district who attend secondary school away from home, and the number of students who have dropped out of its schools within the past six years.

. AS 14.30.010(b)(7).

. AS 14.30.010(a).

. According to the deposition of Margaret Justice, the total statewide enrollment in the secondary level correspondence program as of June 1973 was only 79 students.

. Ch. 142 SLA 1974.

. See AS 14.08.090(14).

. Article 10, section 1 of Utah’s constitution states that:
The Legislature shall provide for the establishment and maintenance of a uniform system of public schools, which shall be open to all children of the State, and be free from sectarian control.
Logan City School District v. Kowallis, 94 Utah 342, 77 P.2d 348 (1938) construed the word “open” in the education article of the Utah Constitution. In that case the Supreme Court of Utah said in part:
. . . The provision is that the system of public schools shall be open to all children of the state. There shall be provided, for each child in the state, a school suitable to its development and training, and as reasonably convenient for attendance as is practicable, which school such child shall have a right to attend. And when the public schools are open to all children on the same and equal terms, compliance has been had with this clause of the Constitution. . . . . . .
When their home district provides a school suitable in its curriculum, faculty, and facilities for their stage of educational growth and development, free and open to them, and reasonably convenient for attendance, they are given all the Constitution assures or provides for them.
77 P.2d at 350-51, 353. The Logan City case has been cited with approval in Starkey v. Board of Education of Davis County School District, 14 Utah 2d 227, 381 P.2d 718 (1963).
The word “open” also appears in the education articles of the Arizona, Indiana, Montana, New Mexico, and South Dakota constitutions. Article XI, section 6 of the Arizona Constitution and Article XI, section 7 of the Montana Constitution ensure that the schools are “open” to all students “between the ages of six and twenty-one years” while article XII, section 1 of the New Mexico Constitution refers to all “children of school age”. Article 8, section 1 of the Indiana Constitution and article VII, section 1 of the South Dakota Constitution employ the phrase “equally open to all”.

. 347 U.S. at 493, 74 S.Ct. at 691, 98 L.Ed. at 880.

. See San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 29-30, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 1295, 36 L.Ed.2d 16, 41 (1973). The Rodriguen: Court upheld the Texas school financing scheme, and, in so doing, ruled that education is not a fundamental right for purposes of analysis under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The result in no way detracts from “the grave significance of education both to the individual and to our society”. 411 U.S. at 30, 93 S.Ct. at 1295, 36 L.Ed.2d at 41. Compare Serrano v. Priest, 5 Cal.3d 584, 96 Cal.Rptr. 601, 615-619, 487 P.2d 1241, 1255-59 (1971) (echoing the United States Supreme Court’s sentiments in Brown regarding the “fundamental” importance of education).

. Much of the record points toward evidence of the existing school system’s deleterious effects on members of appellants’ class. Native students living away from home are often homesick and have difficulties adjusting to boarding schools. Many students in boarding schools have turned to drinking, violence, vandalism, and even suicide attempts. See J. Kleinfeld, A Long Way from Home, Effects of Public High Schools on Village Children Away from Home chs. 2-3 (Center for Northern Educational Research & Institute for Social, Economic and Governmental Research 1973). It also may be psychologically damaging to appellants to separate them from their homes during their adolescent developmental period in which “identity formation” takes place. E. Erickson, Childhood and Society 261-62 (2d ed. 1963) ; Goldstein, Freud & Solnit, Beyond the Best Interests of the Child 19 (1973).
Because of the strains imposed on Native secondary school students away from home, many have dropped out of school. The children in the tillages are not in school and are not subject to Alaska’s compulsory school attendance statute. AS 14.30.010(b)(7) renders the compulsory attendance statute inapplicable where a child between seven and sixteen years of age
resides more than two miles from either a public school or a route on which transportation is provided by the school authorities . . . .
The amicus briefs suggest that appellants have a fundamental right to “cultural integrity”, a concept, it is argued, that is closely related to the sanctity of the home and the family. This right is deemed to be encompassed within the right of privacy as derived from either the “penumbras” of the First, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution or article I, section 1, and article I, section 22 of the Alaska Constitution. See Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973) ; Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972) ; Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965) ; Breese v. Smith, 501 P.2d 159 (Alaska 1972). In view of my analysis of article VII, section 1 of the Alaska Constitution, I find it unnecessary to discuss this claimed right of “cultural integrity”.

.There should be no implication from this view that regional boarding schools or the *814boarding home program need be abandoned. On the contrary, it may be desirable for a student to leave his village to obtain specialized instruction in a larger or better-equipped high school. My construction does not preclude granting options to rural secondary school age students to attend high schools in other communities.

. See, e. g., In re Shinn, 195 Cal.App.2d 683, 16 Cal.Rptr. 165 (1961). AS 44.27.020 provides in pertinent part:
The Department of Education shall
(1) administer the state’s program of education at the elementary and secondary levels, including . . . correspondence courses .
Although there is a traditional preference for classroom instruction, correspondence courses, when properly supervised, do not fall below the minimum standards of the state’s public education program.

. Alaska State Board of Education, The Big Picture on Small Schools 18 (1972).

. Id. at 17.

. Dr. Kleinfeld employed the following criteria of “success”: that the student (1) stayed in the school or program, (2) did not develop severe or moderately severe school-related social and emotional problems, and (3) gained at least half the expected amount in reading achievement. In the Bethel boarding home program, 96 percent failed ; in the Nome boarding school program, 67 percent failed; and in the Anchorage boarding home program, 77 percent failed. See J. Kleinfeld, supra note 19, at 31, 53, 68.

. See, e. g., State v. Wylie, 516 P.2d 142, 149 (Alaska 1973) ; Alvarado v. State, 486 P.2d 891 (Alaska 1971) ; Baker v. City of Fairbanks, 471 P.2d 386 (Alaska 1970) ; accord, Hosier v. Evans, 314 F.Supp. 316 (D.V.I.1970) (requiring the Virgin Islands Board of Education to admit all aliens to public schools and declaring that the government must raise the additional funds required).

. Alaska Department of Education, Small Secondary Schools Administrative Manual 20 (1st ed. Sept. 1971).

. Rough and slightly dated operating cost comparisons showing local high schools to be the least expensive alternative may be found in Alaska State Board of Education, The Big Picture on Small Schools 5 (1972).

. In Macauley v. Hildebrand, 491 P.2d 120, 122 (Alaska 1971), in another context, this court noted that “no other unit of government shares responsibility or authority”, but the “unit” whereof we spoke was the State as opposed to a borough.

.I agree with the superior court’s determination that there are no genuine issues of material fact barring entry of summary judgment on Count I of appellants’ complaint. I note my agreement with the majority’s disposition of the class action, specific regulations promulgated by the Alaska Board of Education, and the equal protection issues. Further, I think it worth emphasizing that under the majority’s opinion it is still open to appellants to pursue their equal protection claims.

. This constitutional right of access is n.ot absolute. The State would have no duty, for example, in the case of a single school age child living in isolation to provide secondary education at the location of his home in the wilderness. Admittedly there are gray areas. Although established villages with currently operational elementary schools would be likely locations for rural secondary schools, the legislature is free to devise reasonable, specific, numerical standards such as that contained in AS 14.14.110(a) which says that
if a cooperative arrangement requires pupils to live away from their usual homes, the school board shall provide classes within the attendance area when there are at least eight children eligible to attend elementary and secondary school in the attendance area.