Members of Jamestown Sch. Com. v. Schmidt

• Decision Date: 08 March 1977
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 76-552.
• Citation: 427 F. Supp. 1338
• Parties: MEMBERS OF the JAMESTOWN SCHOOL COMMITTEE et al. v. Dr. Thomas C. SCHMIDT et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island

427 F. Supp. 1338

MEMBERS OF the JAMESTOWN SCHOOL COMMITTEE et al. v. Dr. Thomas C. SCHMIDT et al.

Civ. A. No. 76-552.

United States District Court, D. Rhode Island.

March 8, 1977.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Amato A. DeLuca, Warwick, R. I., for plaintiffs.

Gregory L. Benik, Special Asst. Atty. Gen., Providence, R. I., Vincent J. Naccarato, Westerly, R. I., Joseph E. Marran, Jr., Pawtucket, R. I., Thomas W. Pearlman, Providence, R. I., Arnold E. Johnson, Cranston, R. I., for defendants.

OPINION

PETTINE, Chief Judge.

I

Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief against Section 16-21-2 of the Rhode Island General Laws, contending that it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment insofar as it provides transportation benefits to children attending sectarian schools which are not available to children attending public schools. For the reasons stated herein, the Court finds and declares that § 16-21-2 violates the Establishment Clause.

Plaintiffs, who bring this action individually,¹ are the five members of the Jamestown School Committee, the seven members of the Charlestown School Committee, and a resident of Jamestown with two children presently attending the Jamestown Elementary School. Each of the plaintiffs is a taxpaying resident of either Jamestown or Charlestown. Plaintiffs therefore have standing to challenge state expenditures as violative of the Establishment Clause. DiCenso v. Robinson, 316 F.Supp. 112, 114 n.1 (D.R.I.1970) (three-judge court), aff'd sub nom. Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971). See also Committee for Public Education v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 762, 93 S.Ct. 2955, 37 L.Ed.2d 948 (1973).

Jurisdiction over the various defendant state officials is founded on 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3) for a cause of action arising under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.² The matter is now before the Court for final determination.³

II

Based on a hearing and an agreed statement of facts, the Court makes the following findings of fact. Nearly 89% of the children attending Rhode Island's non-public schools actually attend sectarian schools, operated by religious bodies and providing, in part, religious education. From facts developed here and in DiCenso v. Robinson, supra, of which the Court takes judicial notice, it appears that there has long been a serious financial crisis in parochial education in this state. This crisis has led to the closing of some parish schools and their replacement by regionalized religious schools, which have cut down the costs of sectarian education through centralization and economies of scale. Regionalization has also enabled the Diocese of Providence, which operates almost all of the Catholic schools throughout Rhode Island, to provide better educational programs, broader curricula, and more efficient use of teachers in its schools.

Transportation of children to sectarian schools has long been an issue of wide dispute in Rhode Island. After the Supreme Court of Rhode Island ruled in 1965 that a former version of R.I.G.L. § 16-21-2 did not require school committees to provide transportation for children to private and sectarian schools outside the committee's local district, Chaves v. School Committee, 211 A.2d 639 (R.I.1965), the legislature rewrote the statute to require school committees which bussed children to public schools to bus local children to any public, private, or sectarian school in the state which had "regionalized", that is, declared itself open to children in a specific area within the state. The Rhode Island Supreme Court struck down that statute as well, holding that the statute impermissably delegated legislative power to the private and sectarian schools. Jennings v. Exeter-West Greenwich Regional School District Committee, 352 A.2d 634 (R.I.1976).⁴

The legislature has now responded again, attempting to provide transportation for children attending non-public schools within constitutional limits. The statute at issue here, R.I.G.L. § 16-21-2, passed in 1976, provides:

Transportation of school pupils without town limits. — In the event that any such public or private schools are consolidated, regionalized, or otherwise established to serve residents of a specific area within the state, the school committee of any town shall provide such transportation for pupils attending said schools who reside within the town and within the area served by such school notwithstanding the location of the school without the limits of the town if the pupils reside so far from the school that transportation to public school is provided within the town for other pupils who reside as far from school, provided that a town shall not be required to transport any pupil beyond an area having a (fifteen) 15 mile radius from the school building which such pupil attends.

In order to assess the constitutionality of the newly amended law, it is necessary to understand its practical operation with respect to the regionalized Catholic schools. Parishes may be included in a regional district only with their consent and with the approval of the Diocese. After a parent requests transportation from a local school committee, the school committee normally requests an opinion from the Commissioner of Education as to whether the school for which transportation is sought is in fact a "regional" school for which transportation must be provided. If the Commissioner is of the opinion that the school is in fact established to serve residents of a specific area, he issues a written opinion so stating, although this opinion is of no legal force or effect. Should the local school committee refuse to provide requested transportation to a regionalized school, the parents may appeal that decision to the Commissioner of Education, who then issues a formal Decision stating whether or not the school committee has a duty to provide the requested transportation. A Decision of the Commissioner may be appealed to the Board of Regents, and then by writ of certiorari to the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

The Commissioner has recently issued two Decisions determining that the Jamestown and Charlestown School Committees have a duty to bus the children of intervenor-defendants to the Monsignor Matthew F. Clarke Regional School which is located outside of their respective towns but within fifteen miles of the Jamestown and Charlestown town limits.⁵ These decisions were issued on appeal of rulings of the Jamestown and Charlestown School Committees declining to provide the requested transportation on the grounds that providing such transportation would be contrary to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. After the Commissioner's adverse decisions, individual members of each committee sought injunctive and declaratory relief in this Court. Examination of the transportation provided various groups of school children in Rhode Island demonstrates that § 16-21-2 does not in practice, as it purports to, provide transportation benefits to public and sectarian school children alike.

Public school children enrolled in the standard curriculum comprise the great majority of children enrolled in schools of Rhode Island. Transportation must be provided for such children by the local school committees only within the local school districts,⁶ or to the public school designated for the children of a community which does not operate its own school.

Besides occasional athletic and educational field trips, there are only two groups of public school children bussed outside of their school districts. Neither of these groups is bussed pursuant to R.I.G.L. § 16-21-2.

First, the state has established a system of nine regional vocational schools throughout the state. Each regional vocational school (hereinafter RVS) serves the city or town within which it is located as well as the other cities and/or towns located within the designated region. Each city or town has a limited number of spaces which it may fill with its students at the RVS serving it. A local school committee is obligated to transport these pupils to the RVS; and the school committee is also obligated to provide transportation for a pupil seeking to enroll in a vocational program offered at a RVS other than the one serving his region. Approximately 4864 students in grades 10-12 attend regional vocational schools, of whom 1559 are bussed out of their own communities. Since this transportation was provided by local school committees well before the enactment of § 16-21-2, and since local school committees transport some children to regional vocational schools well past the fifteen mile limit of transportation provided pursuant to § 16-21-2, it is apparent, and the Court so finds, that transportation of pupils to RVS's is provided pursuant to power vested in the Board of Regents by Title 16, Chapter 45 of the Rhode Island General Laws, and not under any authority conferred by § 16-21-2.

Second, R.I.G.L. § 16-24-4 requires local school committees to provide transportation for children requiring special education programs which are not provided in the local school district. This transportation is provided at the option of the school committee, not at the option of the parent.

The evidence showed, therefore, that R.I. G.L. § 16-21-2 will in fact benefit a single class of children: those attending private schools, the vast majority of which are sectarian. Contrary to the contentions of the defendants, § 16-21-2 does not in practice authorize transportation of children to special education classes or to vocational schools. The evidence also showed that the cost of providing transportation for children attending the Monsignor Clarke School will far exceed the normal cost of school transportation. In Jamestown, the average bussing cost per student per year to public school is $126.26. The least expensive cost of providing the requested transportation to the Monsignor Clarke School would be $401.24.⁷ Since the...