Court Opinion

ID: 9702322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:06:51.864889+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:36.520768
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION BY
SENIOR JUDGE FLAHERTY.
I agree with the result reached by the majority opinion affirming the denial of the temporary injunction, denying the permanent injunction vacating the orders of April 10, 2003 and remanding to the trial court. I do not believe the Chipmans (Student) would suffer irreparable harm if the status quo were continued until the merits of the controversy are fully heard and determined. Majority Opinion, page 1101.1 also agree that the trial court erred in denying relief because of the cost that would be incurred to use another method to transport school students without the transfer station.
I do, however, disagree with the majority reasoning that indicates that at this preliminary stage of the proceedings before the hearing on the permanent injunction we should opine that it is proper for the status quo to be continued permanent*1106ly and that this six year old and all other non-public school students will continue to be bussed to school in a completely different fashion than every one of the other elementary school students.
Even before all the facts are proven in the hearing on the permanent injunction, it has been found that solely because Student is not in the public school, he and all other non-public elementary school students must board a bus to a transfer station, wait for another bus there and then board a second bus to arrive at his school. Further, they must wait at the transfer station and ride on buses with middle school and high school students. If they were not non-public school student, they would receive a bus ride with only other elementary school students that would take them to school directly without waiting in a transfer station a long time for another bus.
On the occasional day when the public school is closed, student’s direct ride on the school bus from home is, at most, 20 minutes. When the public elementary school is open, however, this six year old is only one example of how a' short bus ride regularly becomes a journey of over an hour (up to 66 minutes in the afternoon). During this marathon ride, which is three times longer than his elementary public school friends, he and the other non-public school students are subjected to the risks of riding on the bus with and waiting at the transfer station with middle and high school students, unlike' the public school elementary children who are sheltered from such risks commensurate with such compulsory association at this tender age by being furnished a bus exclusively for elementary students. One example of such risk was evident when Student was enticed by a dare from an older student to step off the curb at the transfer station when a bus was only 15 feet away from them. The fact that it happened more than once is casually ignored by the trial judge but it appears obvious that a safety problem is apparent in the unequal buss-ing program used by the district for nonpublic school elementary students who are the only elementary students exposed to such risks.
I cannot discern from the above facts in this Record how this school board is complying with the Legislature’s mandate that “the board of school directors shall also make identical provision for the free transportation of pupils who regularly attend non-public [schools].” 24 P.S. 131361(1). Emphasis Added.
I depart from the majority opinion which reasons that the only other factors relating to the “identical” provision for a free ride are the health, safety and welfare of the individual pupils but then ignores the safety problem with the transfer program because there is no proof of a safety problem so far on the bus. In view of the intimidation to which elementary students are customarily subjected by older students by the fear of the stigma of being a “tattle tale”, it is doubtful there would have been any proof of the near tragedy avoided at the transfer station except that it was witnessed by the bus driver. Majority Opinion, page 1104. • To excuse it because the bus driver was driving slowly is shocking when children and adults have been killed by slow moving buses and ignores the proven fact that the supervision is so poor that Student had done this before.
Despite the broad, unequivocal mandate of the Legislature for the District to provide without limitation “identical” transportation, the majority narrows that mandate without persuasive authority when it considers it unwise to review the quality of transportation for individual students because there are innumerable variables and no student with, which to compare the indi*1107vidual’s transportation as far as ascertaining whether it’s identical. Initially, it is noted that the Legislature did not see fit to exclude the quality of transportation furnished, or to even mention it, when it mandated “identical”. The court here chooses to legislate an exclusion into the statute so that in the future transportation must be identical except for the quality of transportation furnished.
With regard to there being too many variables this court regularly determines with no problem whether or not a person is being treated in a non-conforming manner, a discriminatory manner or a manner different from that to which he or she is statutorily entitled. Consequently, I suggest that it is not beyond the ken of our courts at the next hearing to determine that Student and his non-public school peers are not being furnished transportation identical to their peers who attend public school. I disagree with Student that an appellate court can find that it is necessary to eliminate the transfer station when the trial court has failed to do so.
It is, however, the duty of the school board to fashion the means to provide identical transportation, including the identical quality of the transportation. Other school boards in this state are doing it regardless if it means employing at additional cost taxicabs, mini-buses, retired senior citizens, etc., to accommodate the Legislature’s mandate. To accomplish compliance with the statute, the school board may find it necessary to bus both public and non-public elementary students on the same bus directly or to the same transfer station and deal with the older student problem in another way. But, there still would be irreparable harm with no adequate remedy at law, such as damages, if continuation of the status quo is permitted.
I further disagree with the majority’s interpretation that Section 1361 does not address Student’s transportation problem because it does not apply to the problem of an individual non-public school student. In fact, Section 1361 contains in its beginning the mandate for free transportation to “any resident pupil”. It is only later that Section 1362 limits that free ride “when the total distance which any pupil must travel ... does not exceed one and one-half (l]/¿) miles”. That is the only limitation by use of the singular “pupil” in either Sections 1361 or 1362. It is clear that the Legislative intent cannot be ascertained by focusing only on the use of the words “pupil” to clarify mileage when the word “pupils” is also used many times to indicate the broad coverage intended by the Act. Nowhere is there a basis for refusing to enjoin a violation of the mandate for “identical” transportation by excluding from it the quality which is not identical or the fact that only one student has proven it is not identical. Such a conclusion leaves only something like a class action for students and/or their parents to enforce a statute enacted to confer a benefit on them rather than to foist on them a large financial legal burden to identify all the other children who wish to complain. The public policy of Pennsylvania has been clearly expressed that no child shall be discriminated against when it comes to identical free transportation. If the quality of the transportation must be deleted from the benefits of the Act, the Legislature is the proper reformer, not this court.
I do, therefore, concur in the denial of the temporary injunction and the remanding for further proceedings but I dissent from that part of the remand that such proceedings be consistent with the majority opinion since it is error to sanction transportation for non-public school students that is obviously not identical to that *1108of public school students and is in violation of the School Code.