Court Opinion

ID: 9654592
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:43:03.832449+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:07.494234
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION
FINCH, Judge.
I respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority opinion which holds that the practice followed during the 1964-1965 school year violated the Compulsory Attendance Law, § 164.010 (all references are to RSMo 1959 and V.A.M.S., unless otherwise indicated).1 I concur in the majority opinion with reference to the 1963-1964 school year.
During the 1964 — 1965 school year some speech defective children, regularly enrolled in parochial schools, were released twice a week to permit them to attend special speech therapy classes in schools maintained and operated by the Special District for the Education and Training of Handicapped Children of St. Louis County, Missouri. The Special District did not provide transportation for these children.
The single question with reference to the 1964-1965 school year which was raised by the pleadings, tried by Judge Blair and briefed and argued by the parties in this court is whether the 1964 — 1965 practice violated the Missouri Compulsory Attendance Law.
Section 164.010 was as follows:
“Every parent, guardian or other person in this state having charge, control or custody of a child between the ages of seven and sixteen years shall cause the child to attend regularly some day school, public, private, parochial or parish, not less than the entire time the school which the child attends is in session or shall provide the child at home with regular daily instructions during the usual school hours which shall, in the judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction, be at least substantially equivalent to the instruction given children of like age in the day schools in the locality in which the child resides; except that
“(1) A chilcl who, to the satisfaction of the superintendent of schools of the district in which he resides or another person authorized to act for him, is determined to be mentally or physically incapacitated may be excused from attendance at school for the full time required, or any part thereof; or
“(2) A child between fourteen and sixteen years of age may be excused from attendance at school for the full time required, or any part thereof, by the superintendent of schools or other person authorized to act for him or by a court of competent jurisdiction when legal employment has been obtained by the child and found to be desirable, and after the parents or guardian of the child have been advised of the pending action.”
We must determine what is meant by the words “attend regularly some day school, *66public, private, parochial or parish * * considering, of course, the entire text of the statute. The majority opinion holds that the language is unambiguous and means that a child must attend a single school the entire time the school is open during its regular school term.
I do not agree that the language is unambiguous. The word “some” does not necessarily and always mean “single”. One definition in Webster’s Third International Dictionary is “being one, a part, or an unspecified number of something.” Walton v. United States Steel Corp., Mo., 362 S.W.2d 617, 625.2
The interpretation of the language of the statute by the majority opinion poses numerous questions. Here are a few: If a family moves from one community to another during the school year and transfers their child to a different school, have they violated the Compulsory Attendance Law? If, in a city such as St. Louis where a single school district operates many schools, a child is transferred from one school to another during the school year (perhaps to relieve overcrowding or to utilize special facilities in another school, or for some other purpose), has § 164.010 (now § 167.-031) been violated? If, as in Kansas City, the school district arranges for certain bright students who are subject to the Compulsory Attendance Act to be released at certain hours during the regular school day to take courses in the Junior College (a separate district) and thus be dually enrolled, has the statute been violated? If § 164.010 means what the majority opinion says it means, the answer to all these questions must be in the affirmative. I do not believe that the statute so provides. I do not read it to say that dual enrollment is prohibited or that a transfer from one school to another during a school year is forbidden. I cannot accept an interpretation of the language which makes parents guilty of a misdemeanor if they keep their child in full-time attandance but dually enroll him or transfer him from one school to another during the school year.
I am of the opinion that the language in question is ambiguous and that other interpretations are possible. For example, it is arguable that when the Act refers to some school, it means some school district. This would permit transfers between schools within the single school district or dual enrollment in the schools of such district without violating the statute. Such a result, however, necessarily recognizes that the Act is ambiguous and that we must construe it to mean some school district, because the statute obviously does not clearly and specifically say that. This construction, however, still would not solve the problem of a transfer during a school year between school districts or of dual enrollment such as enrollment in the Kansas City public schools and in the Kansas City Junior College.
A third construction of the language of the statute would be that the words “some school” in reality mean some school or schools. This would permit transfers between as well as within school districts and would permit dual enrollment such as that in Kansas City.
Where the language of a statute is ambiguous, it is proper to ascertain the legislative intent in construing the statute. Household Finance Corporation v. Robertson et al., Mo., 364 S.W.2d 595 [5,6]. In so doing, we must consider the evil which the statute sought to remedy. This court stated in Haynes v. Unemployment Compensation Commission, 353 Mo. 540, 547, 183 S.W.2d 77, 82: “ * * * a statute must be constructed in the light of the evil which it seeks to remedy and in light of conditions obtaining at the time of its enactment.”
*67The historical causes which resulted in compulsory attendance laws in this country are discussed by Thomas E. Finegan, former Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of Pennsylvania, in Encyclopedia Americana, 1957 Edition, Vol. 9, pp. 599, et seq., “Education, Compulsory.” The article points out that the rise of child labor and increasing immigration created conditions which interfered with the education of children and created various social and economic problems. Acts such as the Missouri Compulsory Attendance Law of 1905 were adopted to require school attendance and thereby attack these problems. The title of that first Act was as follows: “AN ACT to enforce the constitutional right of every child in the state to an education, to provide for truant or parental schools and attendance officers in cities of ten thousand population or more and to prohibit the employment of children during school hours.” Laws 1905, p. 146. It shows a purpose to keep children in school and not permit them to be engaged in child labor during school hours. Nothing in the title is suggestive of an intention to require attendance at a single school for the entire school year.
It will be noted that § 164.010 contains two exceptions. Both relate to when a child may attend less than full time. The first exception is in the case of mentally and physically handicapped children who may be excused part time or full time under certain circumstances, and the second relates to children between fourteen and sixteen who are employed under certain specified conditions. There are no exceptions in the statute relative to where a child shall attend. Rather, they are concerned only with instances when a child shall be excused from full time attendance. This is understandable in view of the purpose of the Act to require full-time attendance of children of the designated age group.
The history of this legislation and the language of the Act demonstrate that the purpose of this legislation was to require that children of specified ages receive a specified minimum of school instruction. They could go to public or private or parochial schools, but they must go full time. The purpose of the Act was not to' require that such instruction be at a single school for the entire term.
The construction of the Missouri statute which I would adopt finds support in language in the recent decision of the Appellate Court of Illinois, First District,. Second Division, in the case of Morton et al. v. Board of Education of the City of Chicago et al., 69 Ill.App.2d 38, 216 N.E.2d 305. In that case plaintiff sought to enjoin the school board from maintaining a dual enrollment program. Students took English,. Social Studies, Music and Art at the St.. Paul High School, a nonpublic school, and the remainder of their courses at the John F. Kennedy High School, a public school. The attack was on the ground that this, violated the Compulsory Attendance Law of Illinois, § 26-1, Illinois Revised Statutes. 1963, Chapter 122. In the opinion the court says, 1. c. 308: “The dual enrollment program does not violate Section 26-1 of the School Code. Any child within the ages: of 7 and 16 years is required ‘to attend some-public school in the district wherein the child resides the entire time it is in session during the regular school term’ unless the child falls within one of the four exceptions. In the event that the child does come within one of the exceptions it is not necessary that he ‘attend some public school in the-district wherein [he] resides the entire time-it is in session.’ [Emphasis supplied.]; Since the object of the compulsory attendance law is that all children be educated and not that they be educated in any particular manner or place, part-time enrollment in a school and part-time enrollment in a nonpublic school is permitted by Section 26 — 1 *68so long as the child receives a complete education. See People v. Levisen, 404 Ill. 574, 90 N.E.2d 213, 14 A.L.R.2d 1364.” The Illinois statute differs somewhat from the Missouri Act but the discussion of the purpose of the Act and its effect on dual enrollment is pertinent.
Finally, it should be remembered that § 167.061 3 is a penal statute. It provides that any parent, guardian or other person having charge, control or custody of a child subject to the Act is guilty of a misdemeanor if he does not cause the child to attend school in accordance with the statute. Violation is punishable by fine or imprisonment in jail. Consequently, the statute is to be construed strictly against the State. This is an additional reason for construing the statute so that a parent is not guilty of a misdemeanor if he dually enrolls his child or transfers the child from one school to another. If the parent would not violate the statute by such actions, the 1964 — 1965 practice was not unlawful.
The trial court held that the 1964 — 1965 practice violated § 164.010 and that it also would be violative of § 167.031. I would reverse that portion of the decision.

. Section 164.010 was amended by Laws 1963, page 274, § 8-3, effective July 1, 1965, and appears now as § 167.031.

. In 81 C.J.S. p. 391, under the word “Some,” it is stated that, “The term ‘some’ is uncertain in its signification,” and in footnote 17 on that page appears the following quotation: “‘Some’ is a term too uncertain in its signification to sustain a verdict for any definite amount. It may mean a single ounce, or ten thousand tons, a single quart, or twenty thousand bushels.”

. The section which provided for punishment for violation of § 164.010 was § 164.-060, which also was repealed by the 1963 Act.