Legislative Session Yields No Fix to Supreme Court Ruling on Unaccredited Schools

Much to the dismay of some local school districts, state lawmakers were unable to come up with a resolution to a recent Missouri Supreme Court ruling that could result in a rapid influx of students from unaccredited schools transferring to neighboring districts.

That possibility is the result of the court's July opinion in the Jane Turner v.  case that students from unaccredited districts can choose to attend any accredited district in the same or adjoining county. Furthermore, the court contends that the accepting district has no discretion in the matter.

While districts like Clayton and Brentwood are voicing concern over the lack of decision, the Parkway School District is taking a "wait and see" approach.

"There's not much to tell. We're expecting the status quo until the lower court decides something, but there's nothing different at this point," said Cathy Kelly, a Parkway School District spokesperson.

In the St. Louis area, both the St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS) and Riverview Gardens School District are unaccredited.

Some local school officials are concerned that the lack of local control would force them to increase class size and add classrooms, which could ultimately result in tax increases for district residents. 

Brentwood Superintendent Dr. Charles Penberthy said the lack of a decision from state lawmakers on the issue has him concerned about the upcoming school year.

“You can’t prepare for how many students might be coming in,” he said. “We’re disappointed there wasn’t a fix in the state legislature, but we’ll have to wait to see what the court decides.”

However, Kelly told Patch that Parkway might be insulated from the effects of this a bit, because the district is not immediately neighboring the city of St. Louis and there is some room in some of the Parkway schools.

"We do have some capacity, but not a lot, because our enrollment has remained fairly flat or declined in the last 10 years," Parkway Spokespeson Paul Tandy previously told Patch. "We have pockets here and there, and we've shared that with the state."

But, Tandy said, there's not much wiggle room. When voters passed Proposition R, a tax increase, in 2006, the district made a committment to keeping class sizes low; elementary school classes should average 19.2 students, middle school classes should have 22.5 students and high school classes should have 22.9 students.

Several bills were proposed in the last legislative session to address the topic, but none were approved.

Chris Tennill, chief communications officer for the Clayton School District, said the case, as well as all issues that evolved from the Supreme Court ruling, is now in the hands of the St. Louis County Circuit Court.

“The Supreme Court remanded the case back to the St. Louis County Court to decide, and now it’s charged with resolving all issues involved in the case,” he said.

"It's the $65-million question," Kelly said.

Turner v. Clayton:  History of the case

Shortly after the St. Louis school district lost its accreditation in 2007, Jane Turner and three other parents, representing six students attending the School District of Clayton, sued the Clayton and St. Louis districts and the City of St. Louis Board of Education. The students, who live in the SLPS district, were attending Clayton schools based on personal tuition agreements.

The plaintiffs claimed that the SLPS district should pay their children’s tuition because it had become unaccredited and that the Clayton district should send the tuition bills to the transitional district. The parents pointed to a state statute that requires unaccredited districts to pay the tuition costs of its students who choose to attend an accredited school in an adjoining district. 

The St. Louis County Circuit ruled in favor of both school districts, finding that the statute was inapplicable to the SLPS district. After several appeals, the case ended up going to the Missouri Supreme Court. In July, it issued its opinion and subsequently sent the case back to the lower courts to decide.

Tennill said the Supreme Court weighed in on three key issues. In a nutshell, they include:

1. The state law that the plaintiffs cited does apply to the SLPS district. Contrary to the lower court's judgment, the Supreme Court maintains that unaccredited districts should pay the tuition for students who choose to attend accredited districts. 

2. Tuition agreements supercede the plaintiffs' rights for restitution. The Supreme Court decided that the parents are not entitled to restitution for tuition paid to Clayton because the St. Louis public schools became unaccredited because of existing tuition agreements. 

3. School districts are required to accept any student from an unaccredited district. On a 4-3 vote, the court concluded that other state laws giving districts discretion in deciding whether or not to admit students from unaccredited districts do not apply under existing state law. Furthermore, it noted that legislators in 1993 removed a section of the statute that read: "but no school shall be required to admit any pupil."

“We’re back in court May 31 to continue to pursue a resolution,” Tennill said. “We’ll have a better idea of our next steps and the direction we’ll take after that conference.”