County Bd. of Ed. of Alcorn County v. Parents and Custodians of Students at Rienzi School Attendance Center, 43210

• Decision Date: 23 November 1964
• Docket Number: No. 43210,43210
• Citation: 251 Miss. 195,168 So.2d 814
• Parties: COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION OF ALCORN COUNTY, Mississippi, acting as such Board and acting as the Board of Trustees of the Alcorn County School District, v. PARENTS AND CUSTODIANS OF STUDENTS AT RIENZI SCHOOL ATTENDANCE CENTER, assigned to attend the Biggersville School Attendance Center in Alcorn County, Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 814

168 So.2d 814

251 Miss. 195

COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION OF ALCORN COUNTY, Mississippi acting as such Board and acting as the Board of Trustees of the Alcorn County School District, v. PARENTS AND CUSTODIANS OF STUDENTS AT RIENZI SCHOOL ATTENDANCE CENTER, assigned to attend the Biggersville School Attendance Center in Alcorn County, Mississippi.

No. 43210.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Nov. 23, 1964.

William L. Sharp and W. C. Sweat, Jr., Corinth, for appellants.

W. C. Adams, Corinth, and Cunningham & Cunningham, Booneville, for appellees.

RODGERS, Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Circuit Court of Alcorn County, Mississippi, setting aside and remanding for further consideration an order of the County Board of Education assigning James D. Johnson, a student, to attend school at the Biggersville School Attendance Center in Alcorn County.

This controversy grew out of the reorganization of Mississippi schools under the school reorganization plan adopted and enacted by the Legislature at a Special Session in 1953.

The record reveals that Alcorn County had gone through the procedure of abolishing small schools and had established new school attendance centers at centrally located areas. Alcorn County, exclusive of the territory embraced in the City of Corinth Municipal Separate School District, was consolidated into a single school district. There had been a school at Rienzi, a small community of 375 people. This community is located on the county line between Alcorn and Pretiss Counties. The Rienzi School had accommodated students from both counties.

The Alcorn County School Board abolished the Rienzi Municipal Separate School District as an attendance center for high school students for the obvious reason, among others, the children would have to be transported from across the county near Corinth to the county line. No appeal was taken from the order of the school board and the order thus became final.

The county school board, in an effort to obtain financial aid from the State to construct school buildings, submitted a 'longrange plan' to the State Educational Finance Commission, showing the location of the various schools, attendance centers in Alcorn County, setting out the grades to be taught at each school. The plan included three high schools, exclusive of the one at Corinth, namely: Kossuth, to serve the western part of the county, Biggersville, to serve the central part of the county, and Central, to serve the eastern part of the county, and also certain other attendance centers for grades one to eight. The State Educational Finance Commission approved this plan for state aid. The schools in Alcorn County were reduced from thirty-one to eight. Pursuant to Mississippi Code Annotated section 6328-12 (1962), the high school at Rienzi was continued in operation by the county school board pending the completion of the new facilities at Biggersville. On November 20, 1961, the State Educational Finance Commission approved an application for $95,000 state aid funds to be allocated to the building program for Biggersville School Attendance Center.

On April 18, 1962, W. G. Johnson and others filed a suit in the Chancery Court of Alcorn County to prevent construction of the school facilities at Biggersville and prevent students from the Rienzi school and certain other schools from being transferred to Biggersville School Attendance Center. The court sustained an application of the parents to enjoin the construction of the school at Biggersville, necessitating a new order and contract by the county school board to build the school. On September 17th the State Educational Finance Commission approved a new application for the Alcorn County Board of Education for $118,000. A new contract was entered into for the construction of the addition to Biggersville School Attendance Center and the building program was completed before this case was tried in the Circuit Court of Alcorn County, Mississippi.

The Board of Education of Alcorn County entered an order assigning various students to the Biggersville School Attendance Center on July 23, 1962, and the high school at Rienzi was eliminated from the Alcorn County public school system.

Thereafter, on August 7, 1962, many of the students who were assigned were reassigned and their parents, including James D. Johnson, filed an application with the Alcorn County Board of Education asking for a reassignment. The county board set September 13th as the date upon which a hearing on the application would be had. The parents and students testified at the hearing, and thereafter on December 17, 1962, the County Board of Education of Alcorn County affirmed its former of July 23, 1962, assigning James D. Johnson and others to the Biggersville School Attendance Center. James D. Johnson and his father W. G. Johnson, appealed to the Circuit Court of Alcorn County, where the application of the petitioner, James D. Johnson, was head before a jury on a de novo trial.

The jury returned a verdict setting aside the order of the Alcorn County Board of Education dated December 17, 1962, and pursuant thereto, the circuit court entered an order remanding the application for reassignment of the petitioner, James D. Johnson, for further consideration. Whereupon, an appeal was perfected to this Court.

The application for assignment to a school attendance center filed by James D. Johnson with the Alcorn County Board of Education, and the appeal to the Circuit Court of Alcorn County were perfected in accordance with Mississippi Code Annotated sections 6334-01, 6334-02, 6334-05 (1962). The County Board of Education acted in Alcorn County as the Board of Trustees of the County in accordance with Mississippi Code Annotated section 6334-06 (1962).

Mississippi Code Annotated section 6334-05 (1962), is in the following language: 'Appeals to circuit court[251 MISS 202] --jury trial.--if aNy interested person, or the board of trustees of the school district involved, shall feel aggrieved at the order of the county board of education, such person or board of trustees may, at any time within thirty (30) days from the date of such order, appeal therefrom by filing a petition for appeal in the circuit court of the county in which the school district involved is located. Upon the filing of such petition for an appeal, process shall be issued for and served upon the person involved or the president of the board of trustees of the school district involved, as the case may be, and upon the president of the county board of education. Upon being served with process, it shall be the duty of the county board of education to transmit promptly to the court a certified copy of the entire record of the proceedings as shown by the file of the county board of education. Upon such appeal the matter shall be tried de novo in the circuit court before a jury in the same manner as other civil cases are tried and disposed of therein. If the verdict of the jury be that the order of the county board shall be affirmed then the court shall enter its judgment affirming the action of the county board. If the verdict of the jury be that the order of the county board should be set aside, then the court shall enter its order so providing and remanding the matter for further consideration and determination by the county board. From the judgment of the circuit court, an appeal may be taken by any interested party to the supreme court in the same manner as other appeals are taken from other judgments of such court.'

The county board of education resisted the appeal of James D. Johnson and others in the Circuit Court of Alcorn County by filing certain motions to dismiss the appeal because, (1) the petitioners failed to exhaust their administrative remedy; (2) the appeal of all high school students, including James D. Johnson, should be dismissed because there was no issue to be tried on appeal since no high school was maintained in Rienzi as a part of the public school system of Alcorn County, and (3) petitioners had voluntarily withdrawn from the public school system of Alcorn County and were then attending a privately operated school. These motions were overruled. The appeal to the circuit court had been taken as a class action and a joint venture of all parents and students named in the petition for reassignment. The trial court, however, confined the action on appeal to one student, namely James D. Johnson. The issue was joined for determination of the following questions: (1) Whether the order of the county board assigning James D. Johnson to the Biggersville School Attendance Center was supported by substantial evidence; or (2) whether the action of the county school board was arbitrary or unreasonable; or (3) whether it exceeded the power of the Alcorn County School Board to make such an assignment under the matters considered by it; or (4) whether or not the assignment of the student James D. Johnson violated and constitutional right of the student.

The Alcorn County School Board objected to the introduction of any testimony in the circuit court on appeal which had not been previously presented to the school board at its administrative hearing to determine places where students would be assigned. This objection was overruled, and appellee was permitted to introduce all of the testimony he desired on the issue upon a de novo hearing in the circuit court.

We go directly to the issue on which the solution of the problem here involved may be determined. In so doing, we bypass the...