Jeter v. Ellenville Central School Dist.

• Decision Date: 15 February 1977
• Citation: 392 N.Y.S.2d 403,41 N.Y.2d 283
• Parties: , 360 N.E.2d 1086 In the Matter of Charles JETER et al., Respondents, v. ELLENVILLE CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Respondents, Board of Education of the City of Yonkers et al., Appellants-Respondents, and Board of Education, City School District of the City of New Rochelle, Respondent-Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 403

392 N.Y.S.2d 403

41 N.Y.2d 283, 360 N.E.2d 1086

In the Matter of Charles JETER et al., Respondents, v. ELLENVILLE CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Respondents Board of Education of the City of Yonkers et al Appellants-Respondents and Board of Education, City School District of the City of New Rochelle, Respondent-Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Feb. 15, 1977.

W. Bernard Richland, Corp. Counsel, New York City (Alfred Weinstein, L. Kevin Sheridan and Joseph F. Bruno, New York City, of counsel), for New York City Board of Education and another, appellants.

Eugene J. Fox, Corp. Counsel, Yonkers (Howard G. Most, Yonkers, of counsel), for Board of Education of City of Yonkers, appellant-respondent.

Peter M. Fishbein and Robert S. Ellenport, New York City, for Board of Education, City School District of City of New Rochelle, respondent-appellant.

Gerald Harris, County Atty., White Plains (Jonathan Lovett, New York City, of counsel), for Westchester County Department of Social Services, respondent.

JONES, Judge.

We hold that paragraph a of subdivision 5 of section 3202 of the Education Law is to be interpreted as imposing the cost of instruction of pupils placed in family homes at board by social services districts and State departments and agencies on the school district in which the pupil resided at the time the district, department or agency assumed responsibility for his support and maintenance, provided that the cost of instruction shall continue to be borne by any district, department or agency which had assumed responsibility for tuition costs (as distinguished from support and maintenance) prior to January 1, 1974. The attacks aimed by appellants at paragraph a as so interpreted must be rejected.

The statutory provision with which we deal is a portion of the section of the Education Law that establishes the right to free public education for resident pupils and sets forth details of making education available to nonresident pupils, including allocation of the cost of such education. Paragraph a was added to subdivision 5 of section 3202 by chapter 867 of the Laws of 1973 with a view to relieving school districts of the financial burden of educating pupils who are placed in family homes within the district at board from other school districts, a burden to which the districts furnishing the educational services had been subjected under prior law. Paragraph a, as amended by chapter 919 of the Laws of 1974, now provides in relevant part: 'The cost of instruction of pupils placed in family homes at board by a social services district or a state department or agency shall be borne by the school district in which each such pupil resided at the time the social services district or state department or agency assumed responsibility for the support and maintenance of such pupil; provided, however, that such cost of instruction shall continue to be borne while such pupil remains under the age of twenty-one years, by any social services district or state department or agency which assumed responsibility for tuition costs for any such pupil prior to January one, nineteen hundred seventy-four.'

This litigation, instituted to compel provision of public education for particular children residing in foster homes in Ellenville Central School District, was subsequently expanded and parties added to permit a broad determination of responsibility for the cost of such instruction under the quoted statutory subdivision. The courts below have given a literal meaning to the language of paragraph a of Education Law, section 3202, subdivision 5, and have upheld its constitutionality.

We first address the issue of statutory interpretation pressed by the City School District of the City of New Rochelle. This appellant would have us read the defining phrase in the proviso at the end of the quoted statutory sentence--'which assumed responsibility for tuition costs for any such pupil'--as referable not to tuition costs but to the assumption of responsibility for support and maintenance of the pupil. The result of such an interpretation would be to relieve all school districts of educational costs of pupils who had become public charges prior to January 1, 1974, rather than to limit such relief only to those public charges for whom a social welfare district or State department or agency had assumed responsibility for tuition costs (as distinguished from support and maintenance) prior to that date. We reject this suggestion. In our view the language of the subdivision facially and literally draws an unmistakable distinction between responsibility of a social services district or a State department or agency for 'support and maintenance' and for 'tuition costs'. Use of the different terms in such close proximity within the same...