Broadley v. Board of Educ. of City of Meriden

• Decision Date: 16 March 1994
• Docket Number: No. 14658,14658
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: , 90 Ed. Law Rep. 265 Neil BROADLEY et al. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the CITY OF MERIDEN et al.

Page 502

639 A.2d 502

229 Conn. 1, 90 Ed. Law Rep. 265

Neil BROADLEY et al. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the CITY OF MERIDEN et al.

No. 14658.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Nov. 3, 1993.

Decided March 16, 1994. ^*

David Tilles, with whom were Howard Klebanoff and Alyce Raboy, Bloomfield, for appellants (named plaintiff et al.).

Elizabeth A. Foley, Hartford, for appellee (named defendant).

Bernard F. McGovern, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom were John R. Whelan, Asst. Atty. Gen., and, on the brief, Richard Blumenthal, Atty. Gen., for appellees (defendant State Bd. of Educ. et al.).

Before PETERS, C.J., and CALLAHAN, BORDEN, NORCOTT and PALMER, JJ.

PALMER, Associate Justice.

This case requires us to decide whether General Statutes §§ 10-76a ¹ and 10-76d ² establish a state constitutional right to special education ³ for gifted children. ⁴ The plaintiffs, Neil Broadley and Deborah Broadley, ⁵ brought this action seeking a declaratory judgment determining the plaintiff's right to special education. The trial court granted the motions for summary judgment ⁶ of the defendants, the Meriden board of education, the Connecticut state board of education, and the commissioner of education, Gerald Tirozzi, concluding that gifted children do not have a right to special education under the Connecticut constitution. The plaintiff appealed from the judgment of the trial court to the Appellate Court, and we transferred the appeal to this court pursuant to Practice Book § 4023 and General Statutes § 51-199(c). We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The material facts are not in dispute. ⁷ The plaintiff resides in the city of Meriden and attends public school there. The defendant Meriden board of education (school board) is responsible for providing education to children who reside in the city of Meriden. In 1986, when the plaintiff was in kindergarten, he was identified by his school as gifted. Since that time, his parents have demanded that the school board provide him with a program of special education designed to meet his individual needs. Although the plaintiff has received some individualized attention in addition to his school's regular educational program, the school board has refused to provide the plaintiff with an individualized program of special education. Each year, the plaintiff has become bored and frustrated with school.

The plaintiff contends that he has a state constitutional right to receive a program of education specially designed to meet his individual needs as a gifted child. His constitutional claim is based upon the statutes that establish a program of special education for certain Connecticut schoolchildren. General Statutes § 10-76a et seq. That statutory scheme identifies a category of "exceptional" children who need a program of special education because they "deviate ... either intellectually, physically, socially or emotionally so markedly from normally expected growth and development patterns" that they are or "will be unable to progress effectively in a regular school program...." General Statutes § 10-76a(c). This category of exceptional children includes two groups: (1) children whose rate of development is impeded by a disability (children with disabilities); ⁸ and (2) gifted children, whose rate of development is enhanced by their extraordinary learning ability or outstanding artistic talent. General Statutes § 10-76a(e). Special education is statutorily required, however, only for children with disabilities; General Statutes § 10-76d(b); and not for gifted children, who may be provided with a program of special education at the option of the local school board. General Statutes § 10-76d(c). The plaintiff claims that: (1) the legislature, by classifying gifted children as among those children who are unable to "progress effectively" without special education, has created for those children the right to special education under article eighth, § 1, ⁹ of the Connecticut constitution; and (2) gifted children have a right to special education commensurate with that of children with disabilities under article first, §§ 1, ¹⁰ and 20, ¹¹ of the Connecticut constitution. We do not agree.

I

Connecticut schoolchildren have a state constitutional right to an education in our free public elementary and secondary schools. Conn. Const., art. VIII, § 1; see Campbell v. Board of Education, 193 Conn. 93, 105, 475 A.2d 289 (1984); Horton v. Meskill, 172 Conn. 615, 647, 376 A.2d 359 (1977). The plaintiff concedes, however, that the Connecticut constitution does not, standing alone, afford gifted children the right to a program of special education. He also concedes that gifted children have no state statutory right to special education, because the legislature has not mandated such a course of study for gifted pupils. The plaintiff claims, rather, that his fundamental right to a free public education includes the right to a program of special education that enables him to "progress effectively," ¹² as that term is used in General Statutes § 10-76a(c), because the legislature has acknowledged that gifted children cannot achieve effective progress without a program of special education. We reject the plaintiff's argument because it is contrary to the intent and purpose of the statutory scheme.

"The meaning to be given a statute is determined by legislative intent and that legislative intent must be determined by language actually used in the legislation." Eason v. Welfare Commissioner, 171 Conn. 630, 634, 370 A.2d 1082 (1976), cert. denied, 432 U.S. 907, 97 S.Ct. 2953, 53 L.Ed.2d 1079 (1977); Demar v. Open Space & Conservation Commission, 211 Conn. 416, 425, 559 A.2d 1103 (1989). In determining the meaning of a statute, "the statute must be considered as a whole, with a view toward reconciling its separate parts in order to render a reasonable overall interpretation." American Universal Ins. Co. v. DelGreco, 205 Conn. 178, 193, 530 A.2d 171 (1987); Demar v. Open Space & Conservation Commission, supra. Moreover, "the legislature is presumed to have intended a reasonable, just and constitutional result"; Sanzone v. Board of Police Commissioners, 219 Conn. 179, 187, 592 A.2d 912 (1991); Moscone v. Manson, 185 Conn. 124, 128, 440 A.2d 848 (1981); and "we will search for an effective and constitutional construction that reasonably accords with the legislature's underlying intent." Bartholomew v. Schweizer, 217 Conn. 671, 675-76, 587 A.2d 1014 (1991).

Applying these well established rules of statutory construction to our special education statutes, we conclude that the legislature did not intend to create a right to special education for gifted children. Although the language of § 10-76a(c) includes gifted children as among those exceptional children who do not "progress effectively" without special education, § 10-76d(b) and (c) manifest the unambiguous intent of the legislature that special education is mandatory only for children with disabilities and not for gifted students. ¹³ Indeed, there is not the slightest suggestion in the legislative history of the special education statutes that the legislature, in establishing a program of special education, sought either to define the parameters of the state constitutional right to a free public education, or to constitutionalize any particular kind of educational program for exceptional children. ¹⁴ We are obligated, moreover, to uphold the constitutionality of a statute when we may reasonably do so in a manner consistent with the intent of the legislature. Bartholomew v. Schweizer, supra, 217 Conn. at 675-76, 587 A.2d 1014. In these circumstances, when neither the legislature nor the framers of our constitution have vested in gifted children any right to an individualized education program, we cannot conclude that the plaintiff's right to a free public education under article eighth, § 1, of the Connecticut constitution includes a right to a special education program.

II

The plaintiff next argues that the legislature's failure to mandate a program of special education for gifted children violates the plaintiff's rights under the equal rights provision, article first, § 1, and the equal protection provision, article first, § 20, of the Connecticut constitution. This claim is also without merit.

The equal protection provisions of our state constitution require "the uniform treatment of persons standing in the same relation to the governmental action questioned or challenged." ¹⁵ Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 565, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 1383, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964); Franklin v. Berger, 211 Conn. 591, 594, 560 A.2d 444 (1989). We recognize, however, that the legislature has broad discretion in the exercise of its power to legislate, and that "[i]n areas of social and economic policy, a statutory classification that neither proceeds along suspect lines nor infringes fundamental constitutional rights must be upheld against equal protection challenge if there is any reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis for the classification." Federal Communications Commission v. Beach Communications, Inc., --- U.S. ----, ----, 113 S.Ct. 2096, 2101, 124 L.Ed.2d 211 (1993); State v. Reed, 192 Conn. 520, 531, 473 A.2d 775 (1984). ¹⁶

The plaintiff acknowledges that the needs and abilities of gifted children and children with disabilities are sufficiently different that the legislature could reasonably have decided to treat them differently. He contends, nonetheless, that because the legislature has identified a characteristic common to both groups, namely, the need for special education in order to "progress effectively" in school, gifted children and children with disabilities are equally entitled to receive a program of special education under the state constitution. This argument, however, ignores the concededly significant differences between the two groups of students that informs the legislative decision to mandate a...