Court Opinion

ID: 9758204
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:15:43.641653+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:47.873166
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Judge Menoer :
I respectfully dissent. Leaving aside, as does the majority, the significant procedural questions attendant to this case, I would not affirm on the merits. Unlike the majority, I find the case to be difficult.
We are here confronted with the task of endeavoring to reconcile certain attendance requirements of the Public School Code of 1949, Act of March 10, 1949, P. L. 30, 24 P.S. §1-101 et seq., with calendar limitations as a consequence of a disruption of the normal school schedule resulting from a strike of teachers under provisions of the Public Employe Relations Act, Act of July 23,1970, P. L. 563, 43 P.S. §1101.101 et seq.
It seems to me that a complete reconciliation is impossible and that it is for the Legislature to reexamine this area of our law and make necessary amendments to the applicable statutes. Above all, I am convinced that this task of reconciliation is the responsibility and prerogative of the Legislature and is not for the courts, school boards or teachers. We should not be lulled by the temptation of practicality to work out or approve solutions to the specific time problems concerning when and for how long schools will be opened for the purpose of instructing students.
These general observations lead me to a conclusion in this case which is different from that reached by the majority. I would apply the School Code provisions and reach the result that the Northern Cambria School District should have continued to hold classes on a *184Monday through Friday schedule until June 29, 1973, which would have been the last permitted day for school to be open during the school year in question. My reasoning is as follows:
(1) In all school districts of the second, third and fourth classes, the school year shall begin on the first Monday of July of each year.1 24 P.S. §4-401 (b).
(2) All schools shall be kept open each school year for at least one hundred eighty (180) days of instruction for pupils. 24 P.S. §15-1501.
(3) No school shall be kept open on any Saturday2 for the purpose of ordinary instruction, except when Monday is fixed by the board of school directors as the weekly holiday, or on Sunday, Memorial Day, Fourth of July or Christmas, or during the time of holding the teachers’ institute for such district. 24 P.S. §15-1502.
(4) The board of school directors of each school district shall fix the date of the beginning of the school term. 24 P.S. §15-1504.
It is of considerable importance that the board of school directors is given the discretion of fixing the date of the beginning of the school term but it is not given any discretion over fixing the date of the ending of the school term. It is this single truth that separates me from the majority here. The majority concluded that the Northern Cambria School District School Board had acted reasonably under the circumstances and *185within its discretion in holding to the June 1, 1973 closing date originally fixed. I view the Board as having no discretion as to establishing the last day of school but as having discretion only in regard to the first day of school. Once school is under way for the school year, the School Code specifically requires 180 days of instruction, not including Saturdays, Sundays, Christmas, Memorial Day, Fourth of July or those days during which teachers’ institute is being held.
Therefore, I conclude that, since thirty (30) instruction days were lost because of the school strike which lasted from August 29, 1972 until October 12, 1972, the School Code required that twenty (20) of those lost days be made up during the month of June, 1973.3 Specifically, school should have been held Monday through Friday during the four weeks in June, 1973 following the June 1, 1973 closing date fixed initially by the School Board.
This, of course, might not be a complete reconciliation of the various attendance provisions, but it would provide the maximum instruction time within the school year in accord with the School Code and the reality that a legally permitted strike of teachers had resulted in a loss of thirty days of instruction.
I join with the apt observation of my colleague, Judge Kramer, alluded to by the majority, that in these cases the school children are “pawns in an adult game of economics.” As the majority correctly notes, the effect of requiring pupils to attend school for the balance of the school year is inconvenient and unfair, financially and otherwise, to the pupils and their families.
*186Nevertheless, that is what the law now requires, and the Legislature, not the courts, should alleviate and correct this inequity which has resulted from the superimposing of the right of school teachers to strike on the specific and mandatory attendance requirements of the School Code.
Judge Blatt joins in this dissent.

 It seems to me many of the time problems common to cases of this nature could be eased by the Legislature’s redefining the school year as beginning on the first Monday of September of each year, assuming the desirability of a summer vacation.

 The majority discusses appellant’s request that pupils be required to attend school every weelc day for the balance of the school year, without mention of the prohibition against schools being kept open on Saturdays.

 This assumes that no more than ten (10) days would have been made up prior to .Tune 1, 1973 by the elimination of normal holiday vacation periods.