Court Opinion

ID: 9763668
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:51:51.453134+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:47.760538
License: Public Domain

John I. Purtle, Justice, dissenting. Once again I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion in a school district case. I think the majority has overlooked the fact that the appellant had a constitutional right to a free public education as evidenced by Art. 14 § 1 (as amended by Amendment No. 53) to the Constitution of Arkansas which states: Intelligence and virtue being the safeguards of liberty and the bulwark of a free and good government, the State shall ever maintain a general, suitable and efficient system of free public schools and shall adopt all suitable means to secure to the people the advantages and opportunities of education. . . . The appellant also had a statutory right to attend public schools pursuant to Ark. Stat. Ann. § 80-1501 (Repl. 1980) which states: The public schools of any school district in this State shall be open and free through completion of the secondary program, to all persons ... domiciled in the district. . . Furthermore, he was under statutory compulsion to attend school as required by Ark. Stat. Ann. § 80-1502. There is even a penalty for failure to comply with the compulsory attendance law. School boards have the authority and indeed are required to make specific rules to govern the operation of schools within their districts. Ark. Stat. Ann. § 80-1516 provides in part: The directors of any school district may suspend any person from school for immorality, refractory conduct, insubordination, infectious disease, habitual uncleanliness, or other conduct that would tend to impair the discipline of the school, or harm the other pupils . . . The majority opinion sets out part of the school policies but failed to set out a very important portion which states: When a pupil has missed a total of five (5) days during any semester, the principal will conduct an investigation to determine the cause of absenteeism. The parents will be notified and informed of the results of the investigation. If the pupil is found guilty of truancy, he will be suspended to Rebound School for three (3) days. The same procedure will be followed when a pupil has missed a total of ten (10) days of school in any semester. It is obvious that the school board policy contemplated the expulsion of a student who missed a total of 12 school days. It is true that that portion of the policy quoted by the majority states that excessive absenteeism is sufficient grounds for expulsion. It further states that absenteeism shall be defined as failure to attend school a sufficient number of days to be eligible for credit in course work. There is no policy that if a student misses 12 classes in any one course he might be subject to expulsion from the entire school. I think the principal very candidly admitted that the school did not follow its own policy in that appellant was given neither the five-day nor the ten-day warning as required. The principal stated: I think it would have been different if I had performed an attendance check in time to catch Jimmy before he missed too many days. Jimmy was never assigned to Rebound School for his attendance problem. . . . It is obvious from the Constitution and laws of the state of Arkansas, as well as the school board policies, the relevant portions of which are set out above, that appellant had both a statutory and constitutional right to attend public schools. He could, of course, be expelled for the remainder of any term for any of the reasons set out in Ark. Stat. Ann. § 80-1516. If we consider the board policy to be a proper one under the laws of the state of Arkansas, the appellant is entitled to be reinstated. The over-all reading of the policy shows that it was intended that a student be subject to expulsion after missing 12 days of school. The record clearly shows appellant had missed only four days of school before he was suspended on March 3,1981. He had missed about 14 of his physical science classes. However, he remained in school at the time he skipped these classes and continued to attend his other classes. No doubt, if the school authorities had warned him, as required by the policies, after five absences from his physical science class that he was subject to expulsion if he missed 12 classes, he would have changed the course of his conduct. Even though appellant probably received procedural due process, he certainly did not receive substantive due process. The undisputed evidence shows he never missed 12 days from school. A student does not lose all of his constitutional rights when he enters upon the school premises. In my opinion, the appellant has been denied both his statutory and constitutional rights to attend public school and perhaps been sent upon the road of life to an unproductive and unrewarding type of existence into which he may be ill-equipped to function as a result of his expulsion from school.