MS v. EAGLE-UNION COMMUN. SCHOOL CORP.
| Decision Date | 28 October 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 06A04-9806-CV-291.,06A04-9806-CV-291. |
| Citation | 717 N.E.2d 1255 |
| Parties | A Minor, M.S., By Minor's Next Friend, P.S., Appellant-Petitioner, v. EAGLE-UNION COMMUNITY SCHOOL CORPORATION, Appellee-Respondent. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
M.S. by P.S., Indianapolis, Indiana, Appellant Pro Se.
Jack G. Hittle, Church, Church, Hittle & Antrim, Noblesville, Indiana, Attorney for Appellee.
M.S. (the Student) appeals the trial court's judgment upholding a student disciplinary action taken against the Student by Zionsville High School. The Student presents eleven issues on appeal. Restated and compressed, those issues are:
I. Whether the trial court erred by upholding the school's disciplinary policies against the Student's challenge to the validity of those policies.
II. Whether the trial court erred by upholding the school's disciplinary action against the Student's challenge that the action violated his procedural due process rights.
III. Whether the trial court erred by denying the Student's motion for a change of venue.
IV. Whether genuine issues of material fact preclude summary judgment in favor of the school.
V. Whether the judicial review section of the Indiana Student Discipline Act1 is unconstitutional.
We affirm.
The Student was a sophomore at Zionsville High School in the fall of 1996, enrolled in geometry as part of a "Core 40" college preparation curriculum.2 The geometry class was held at midday, and halfway through the class period the students were given a lunch break. During this break, the Student sometimes played basketball. On three occasions before mid-November, the Student failed to stop playing in time to return to geometry before the tardy bell. On each occasion, the teacher informed the Student of the tardiness. After the third tardy the teacher referred the Student to the Assistant Principal, who assigned the Student to a detention. The Assistant Principal issued a written notice of detention to the Student, which the Student was to deliver to the Student's parents. The Student served the detention, but did not deliver the written notice.
In mid-November, the Student was tardy for the fourth and fifth times. The Assistant Principal held a conference with the Student and the Student's mother to discuss the tardiness. The Record contains no documentation of the conference, but the Assistant Principal's affidavit indicates that during the conference he apprised the Student of the school's disciplinary policy concerning chronic tardiness and warned the Student and his mother that the school would withdraw the Student from geometry if the Student was tardy one more time.
The Student was tardy again in early December. As a result, the School withdrew the Student from geometry and assigned the Student to study hall. The Student received no credit for geometry, and the school deleted the class from the Student's record.
The Student appealed the school's disciplinary action to the local school board. The school board affirmed the school's action. The Student then appealed the school board's decision to the trial court, in accordance with the Indiana statutory procedures for review of school disciplinary decisions. In the trial court, the Student sought summary judgment. The court denied the Student's summary judgment motion and instead granted summary judgment in favor of the school. The Student now appeals.
Summary judgment is appropriate when no material facts are in dispute in the litigation. Sizemore v. Arnold, 647 N.E.2d 697, 698 (Ind.Ct.App.1995). When reviewing a summary judgment, this court applies the same standard as the trial court. Wickey v. Sparks, 642 N.E.2d 262, 265 (Ind.Ct.App.1994), trans. denied (1995). A summary judgment must be affirmed on appeal if the evidentiary materials properly presented to the trial court demonstrate that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Ind. Trial Rule 56(C); Barga v. Indiana Farmers Mut. Ins. Group, Inc., 687 N.E.2d 575, 576 (Ind.Ct.App.1997), trans. denied (1998). In determining whether summary judgment is appropriate, all facts and reasonable inferences must be construed against the moving party. Wickey, 642 N.E.2d at 265.
The Student contends that the school tardiness policy is invalid, arguing that the policy conflicts with the Indiana Student Discipline Act, IC 20-8.1-5.1-1 to -27. In particular, the Student claims that the school policy allows the assistant principal to remove a student from class for more than five days, while the Act limits removal to five days or less. The school responds that the Act contains no such limit. Further, the school defends its disciplinary policy by providing evidence that the policy was properly adopted, distributed, and implemented.
The school's tardiness policy reads as follows:
The Student Discipline Act grants school corporation personnel "the right, subject to this chapter, to take any disciplinary action necessary to promote student conduct that conforms with an orderly and effective educational system." IC 20-8.1-5.1-3(b). Section 4 of the Act authorizes teachers and other school staff members having students under their charge "to take any action that is reasonably necessary to carry out or to prevent an interference with an educational function that the person supervises." IC 20-8.1-5.1-4(b). If such a staff member removes a student from an educational function supervised by the staff member (such as a class), the removal may not exceed five school days. IC 20-8.1-5.1-4(c).3
Here, the assistant principal ordered that the Student be removed from class for the last several weeks of the semester. If the assistant principal were merely a staff member within the meaning of Section 4 of the Act, the removal would violate the five-day rule. According to the school's policy, however, the assistant principal was acting as the principal's designee. Record at 146 (). Sections 1 and 5 of the Student Discipline Act specifically allow the principal's designee to take disciplinary action exceeding the five-day limit. IC 20-8.1-5.1-1 (); IC 20-8.1-5.1-5 (). Accordingly, the assistant principal's order did not violate the five-day rule of the Student Discipline Act.4
The Student also argues that the removal from class reduced the Student's instructional hours below the six-hour minimum prescribed by IC 20-10.1-2-1. In response, the school cites Section 24 of the Act, which states:
"If a student is suspended or expelled from school or from any educational function under this chapter, the student's absence from school because of the suspension or expulsion is not a violation of IC 20-8.1-3 or any other statute relating to compulsory school attendance."
IC 20-8.1-5.1-24. Both the school and the Student agree that Section 24 relieves the school of the six instructional hour requirement when a student is suspended or expelled. The Student, however, claims that a student is removed from an educational function (rather than suspended or expelled), the school must still provide six hours of instructional time daily.5
The Student misinterprets Section 24. Part of the misinterpretation stems from ambiguity in the Act concerning three types of disciplinary action: (1) suspension from school, (2) expulsion from school, and (3) removal from an educational function. Section 24 of the Act, as quoted above, relieves schools of the six hour requirement when a student is "suspended or expelled from school or from any educational function." IC 20-8.1-5.1-24 (emphasis added). Absent any statutory definitions the Act would be interpreted according to traditional grammatical principles, making relief from the six hour requirement available only when a student is suspended or expelled from an educational function.
The Act's definitions, however, make clear that there is no such thing as suspension or expulsion from an educational function. The Act defines suspension as: "any disciplinary action that does not constitute an expulsion ... whereby a student is separated from school attendance for a period of not more than ten (10) days." IC 20-8.1-1-11(emphasis added). Similarly, expulsion requires "separation from school." IC 20-8.1-1-10. A student who is removed from an educational function continues to attend school but is prohibited from participating in a certain function. As such, the Section 24 reference to educational function must refer to removal from an educational function, i.e., withdrawn from a class but allowed to attend school. Based on these definitions of the disciplinary actions, Section 24 relieves schools of the six hour instructional requirement when the school removes a student from an educational function, as well as when a student is suspended or expelled.
Having determined that the school's disciplinary policy does not conflict with the Indiana Student Discipline Act, we find no ground for reversal of the trial court's summary judgment upholding the policy.
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