BD. OF EDUC. v. Lighthouse Charter School, 24950.

• Decision Date: 01 June 1999
• Docket Number: No. 24950.,24950.
• Citation: 516 S.E.2d 655,335 S.C. 230
• Parties: BEAUFORT COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, Respondent, v. LIGHTHOUSE CHARTER SCHOOL COMMITTEE and State of South Carolina ex rel. Charles M. Condon, Attorney General, Appellants.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

335 S.C. 230

516 S.E.2d 655

BEAUFORT COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, Respondent, v. LIGHTHOUSE CHARTER SCHOOL COMMITTEE and State of South Carolina ex rel. Charles M. Condon, Attorney General, Appellants.

No. 24950.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Heard April 20, 1999.

Decided June 1, 1999.

Dalton L. Oldham, of Southeastern Legal Foundation, of Columbia; and George E. Mullen, of Mullen Law Firm, of Hilton Head Island, for appellant Lighthouse Charter School Committee.

Attorney General Charles M. Condon, Deputy Attorney General Treva G. Ashworth, and Assistant Deputy Attorney General J. Emory Smith, all of Columbia, for appellant State of South Carolina.

Kenneth L. Childs, William F. Halligan, and John M. Reagle, all of Childs & Halligan, P.A., of Columbia; and David T. Duff and Charles J. Boykin, both of Duff, Dubberly, Turner, White & Boykin, L.L.C., of Columbia, for respondent. MOORE, Justice:

This appeal involves the denial of a charter school application. We affirm and remand to the circuit court for further proceedings.

FACTS

On December 10, 1996, appellant Lighthouse Charter School Committee (Lighthouse) applied to respondent Beaufort County Board of Education (Beaufort Board) for approval of a local charter school under the recently-enacted South Carolina Charter Schools Act of 1996. The Beaufort Board found Lighthouse's application failed to meet several requirements of the Act and denied the application. Lighthouse appealed to the State Board of Education (State Board) which reversed the Beaufort Board's denial.

The Beaufort Board filed an appeal in circuit court.¹ The parties consented to the intervention of the Attorney General who challenged the constitutionality of a provision of the Act requiring that a charter school's enrollment cannot deviate more than ten percent from the racial composition of the school district. S.C.Code Ann. § 59-40-50(B)(6) (Supp.1998). The circuit court declined to address this constitutional question and reversed the State Board's order on the remaining issues. Lighthouse and the Attorney General appeal.

DISCUSSION

LIGHTHOUSE APPEAL

1. Standard of review

An appeal of a local board decision regarding a charter school application is to the State Board whose decision may then be appealed by any party to the circuit court. S.C.Code Ann. § 59-40-90(C)(2) (Supp.1998). In the circuit court, the State Board's order, as the final agency decision, is subject to review under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), S.C.Code Ann. § 1-23-380(A)(6) (Supp.1998), which provides for reversal only if its findings are:

(a) in violation of constitutional or statutory provisions;

(b) in excess of the statutory authority of the agency;

(c) made upon unlawful procedure;

(d) affected by other error of law;

(e) clearly erroneous in view of the reliable, probative and substantial evidence on the whole record; or

(f) arbitrary or capricious or characterized by abuse of discretion or clearly unwarranted exercise of discretion.

This Court then reviews the circuit court's order to determine whether it properly applied the APA standard of review.

In this case, the circuit court cites § 1-23-380(A)(6) as the appropriate standard of review. Lighthouse complains, however, it did not apply this standard of review and improperly gave deference to the Beaufort Board's decision rather than the State Board's decision. We disagree.

This case involves two levels of review. The State Board reviewed the Beaufort Board's findings under Reg. 43-600.² This regulation mirrors the APA's limited standard of review. On review of the State Board's order, the circuit court concluded the State Board should not have reversed the Beaufort Board's findings under its limited standard of review because those findings were supported by evidence in the record. In determining whether the State Board's findings were erroneous, the circuit court properly applied § 1-23-380(A)(6).

2. Grounds for denial of application

The Charter Schools Act provides for a privately organized school to be sponsored and funded by the local school district. S.C.Code Ann. §§ 59-40-70(E) and —140 (Supp.1998). A charter school is exempt from the laws and regulations applicable to public schools except it must:

(1) adhere to the same health, safety, civil rights, and disability rights;

(2) meet or exceed student attendance requirements;

(3) adhere to the same financial audits and procedures;

(4) be considered a school district for purposes of tort liability (specifying that tort immunity shall not include acts of intentional racial discrimination);

(5) hire non-certified teachers only in specified ratios;

(6) admit all children eligible for public school in that school district providing (a) that the charter school's racial composition cannot differ from that of the school district by more than ten percent and (b) if applications exceed capacity, students shall be accepted by lot;

(7) show no preference in admission except to siblings and children of employees;

(8) elect a governing body annually by specified procedure;

(9) be subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

See § 59-40-50(B).

A charter school application constitutes a proposed contract with the sponsor school district. S.C.Code Ann. § 59-40-60(F) (Supp.1998). Subsections 59-40-60(F)(1) through (15) specify exactly what information must be included in a charter school application.

Finally, S.C.Code Ann. § 59-40-70 (Supp.1998) specifies grounds for denial of an application and provides in pertinent part:

(C) A local school board of trustees shall only deny an application if the application does not meet the requirements specified in section 59-40-50 or 59-40-60, fails to meet the spirit and intent of this chapter, or adversely affects other students in the district.

Lighthouse submitted an application outlining plans for a year-round, eight-hour-per-day school program. The school would be located on Hilton Head Island and would accommodate 400 students in grades K-8. At the Beaufort Board's request, Lighthouse also submitted answers to eighty-four questions.

a) Section 59-40-50(B)

The Beaufort Board found Lighthouse's application did not meet the health, safety, and civil rights requirements of § 59-40-50(B)(1) and the racial composition requirement of (B)(6). The State Board reversed, finding as a matter of law the requirements of § 59-40-50(B) need not be met before an application is approved because this section does not specify that the applicant must provide evidence of compliance in its application. The circuit court reversed. Lighthouse contends this was error. We disagree.

Section 59-40-70(C) specifically states that an application may be denied if "the application does not meet the requirements specified in § 59-40-50 or 59-40-60...." Since the plain language of this statute provides that denial of an application may be predicated on the failure to comply with § 59-40-50, we affirm the circuit court's ruling that the Beaufort Board properly considered the requirements of § 59-40-50(B) in denying Lighthouse's application.

Further, as discussed below, the record indicates the Beaufort Board's findings on the merits are not clearly erroneous or arbitrary which, under Reg. 43-600, is the applicable standard of review on appeal to the State Board.

1) Health and safety

The Beaufort Board denied Lighthouse's application on the ground it did not meet the health and safety requirement specified in § 59-40-50(B)(1) which requires that a charter school shall:

adhere to the same health, safety, civil rights, and disability rights requirements as are applied to public schools operating in the same school district.

Specifically, the Beaufort Board found the schematic drawing of the proposed building and the description supplied by Lighthouse³ were not sufficient to determine that an adequate facility would be in existence by the school's projected start-up time. When the Beaufort Board requested assurance that Lighthouse facilities would meet state specifications, Lighthouse responded simply: "Facilities for the Lighthouse Charter School will be comparable to those of other Beaufort County Schools and will meet all state health and safety specifications."

We find Lighthouse's summary assurances of compliance do not constitute evidence of compliance with the health and safety requirement of § 59-40-50(B)(1). No specifications were provided about the proposed building from which to determine compliance with State requirements for school buildings. Accordingly, the Beaufort Board's finding of non-compliance is not clearly erroneous in light of substantial evidence that its request for assurances of compliance were unmet.

2) Civil rights

The Beaufort Board found the Lighthouse application failed to meet the civil rights requirement of § 59-40-50(B)(1) because it failed to comply with the school district's 1970 desegregation agreement which requires approval for new school facilities from the United States Department of Education Office of Civil Rights. In response to the Beaufort Board's request, Lighthouse asserted simply that it was not required to obtain such approval.

The record contains a letter from the Director of the Office of Civil Rights informing the local school district that a charter school must comply with the reporting requirements under the district's voluntary segregation plan. There is no evidence Lighthouse has satisfied the mandates of the Office of Civil Rights. Accordingly, the Beaufort Board's finding that the Lighthouse application failed to adhere to the same civil rights requirements applicable to public schools as provided under § 59-40-50(B)(1) is not clearly erroneous in light of substantial evidence that Lighthouse must comply with the desegregation agreement and has not done so.

3) Racial composition

The Beaufort Board found the Lighthouse application did not meet the racial composition requirement of § 59-40-50(B)(6) which provides...