Court Opinion

ID: 9753555
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:18:22.043725+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:37.980716
License: Public Domain

Justice SAYLOR,
concurring.
Although I support the result reached by the majority opinion, I differ with its perspective that “[tjhere is no justification for reading ‘board of school directors’ to include the board of trustees at the charter school.” Majority Opinion, at 500, 31 A.3d at 665. In fact, the General Assembly’s use of the technique of incorporation by reference to extend general provisions of the Public School Code into the cyber school context, see 24 P.S. § 17-1749-A, requires similar translative efforts in many other material respects. I also have difficulty with the majority’s vision of a demarcation between age of admission and funding, see Majority Opinion, at 503-04, 31 A.3d at 667, in light of the constraints on a charter school’s ability to independently generate revenues, see 24 P.S. § 17-1725-A(a)(l) (“There shall be no tuition charge for a resident or nonresident student attending a charter school”). For these and other reasons, I believe this is a closer case than is reflected on the face of the majority opinion.
In the end, however, I find the governing statute to be materially ambiguous and believe that, if the General Assembly wishes local school districts to fund cyber-kindergarten programs where the district has validly exercised its discretion not to offer a public-school analogue, such an intention should be made plainer.