Northshore School Dist. No. 417 v. Kinnear

• Decision Date: 16 December 1974
• Docket Number: No. 42352,42352
• Citation: 84 Wn.2d 685,530 P.2d 178
• Parties: NORTHSHORE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 417 et al., Petitioners, v. George KINNEAR, as Director of the Department of Revenue of the State of Washington, et al., Respondents.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

Page 685

84 Wn.2d 685

530 P.2d 178

NORTHSHORE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 417 et al., Petitioners, v. George KINNEAR, as Director of the Department of Revenue of the State of Washington, et al., Respondents.

No. 42352.

Supreme Court of Washington, En Banc.

Dec. 16, 1974.

Rehearing Denied March 20, 1975.

Slade Gorton, Atty. Gen., Richard M. Montecucco, William A. Coats, Asst. Attys. Gen., Olympia, Richard H. Holmquist Seattle, for respondents.

Carroll, Rindal, Caplinger & Kennedy, James J. Caplinger, Seattle, John Gant, Cal. Rural Legal Assistance, San Francisco, Cal., Michael J. Fox, Legal Services Center, William Andersen, Montgomery, Purdue, Plankinship & Austin, George W. Akers, Seattle, Sidney M. Wolinsky, Public Advocates, Inc., San Francisco, Cal., John Coons, Berkeley, Cal., Colvin & Williams, David J. Williams, Seattle, for petitioners.

HALE, Chief Justice.

Education is a bulwark of this democracy. A system of free public schools, like a system of open courts, not only helps make life worth living but sustains our long-cherished ideas of individual liberty. Where the nation's constitution provides for a system of open courts, however, it makes no mention of free public schools. The people of this state found this oversight unacceptable Since statehood, the legislature has structured a comprehensive system of public schools, enacting, re-enacting, amending and repealing a detailed code for the funding, operating and maintaining of that system which includes a code for the employment, certification, and retirement of teachers and school administrators. It is a system administered by a Superintendent of Public Instruction and a State Board of Education but puts direct responsibility and authority for actually operating the schools upon 320 separate school districts. The constitutionality of that system is now challenged.

in 1889 when they brought Washington Territory into the Union. Not only did they establish a judicial system, but at the same time they provided for a system of free public schools, imposing then and there a duty upon the state to make ample provision for the education of all children within its borders.

Petitioners are 25 of the 320 school districts of this state, their directors, resident parents, taxpayers and children. They bring their original petition to this court for a writ of prohibition and mandamus to declare the state's system for funding its public schools unconstitutional and to prohibit state officers from collecting and disbursing public funds in support of it. ¹ So sweeping are the demands that, if their Petitioners advance four arguments for unconstitutionality:

petition were upheld, the schools would have to be closed unless the legislature redesigned and restructured the statutes for the funding and operation of the public school system in consonance with the requirements of the decisional law which would be laid down by this court in sustaining the petition. For reasons now stated, we sustain the constitutionality of the laws creating, funding and maintaining the public schools and deny the petition.

1. That the children of this state are denied equal protection of the laws in violation of the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States, and article 1, section 12 of the Constitution of the State of Washington because of the differences in assessed valuation per pupil of property within the several districts.

2. That taxpayers in districts with lower assessed valuation per pupil are denied equal protection of the law in violation of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution and article 1, section 12 of the Constitution of the State of Washington because the low assessed valuation compels them to pay a higher percentage of taxes to raise the same amount of money for the schools than do taxpayers in the high assessed valuation districts.

3. That the state system fails to make ample provision for the education of all children in the State of Washington as prescribed by Const. art. 9, § 1.

4. That the state has failed to provide a general and uniform system of public schools as prescribed by Const. art. 9, § 2.

It should be noted that all of the four contentions are directed not only to the entire present system of funding the public schools but they necessarily challenge the entire statutory code establishing the several districts and operating and maintaining the common schools of the state. The system for funding is merely the obverse side of the system for collecting and distributing the money and the two are More specifically, petitioners ask this court to issue writs of mandate and prohibition directing that state school moneys be allocated among the school districts on a different basis than now prevails; that the court direct that a new and different scheme or system for school financing be established; that respondent public officers be prohibited from allocating and distributing state school moneys to the various districts in the assertedly unconstitutional way it is now done; and that this court declare the present system and method of school financing and funding unconstitutional and, therefore, void. This court can and should, it is claimed, even if it grants the relief asked, retain jurisdiction of this case to afford the respondent public officials and the legislature reasonable time in which to provide a system of school funding and financing which will comply with the constitutions. What will happen to the schools of this state should the legislature fail to meet these requirements is left to the imagination.

so inextricably connected that the constitutionality of the one cannot be appraised without considering the other. For this reason, it is clear petitioners must, in order to challenge the funding system, include the spending system, for funding necessarily includes disbursements. Thus, the remedy sought must be deemed to include a prohibition of collecting and disbursement of moneys for the operation of the presently existing system of public schools. Petitioners' challenge is thus sweeping, comprehensive and all-encompassing. It is not directed to any particular section or sections of the education code of this state but to the entire code embodied in RCW 28A.

Respondents are various state officers whose official responsibilities, in one way or another, affect the operation of the public schools of this state. They include the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Director of the Department of Revenue, the State Treasurer, and the Members of the State Board of Education. The true respondent, of course, but not named as a party, is the state legislature Because this was an original application for prohibition and mandamus and the parties could reach no agreement on the facts, this court referred the matter to the Superior Court which heard evidence and entered findings of fact. The evidence presented to the Superior Court consisted almost entirely of statistical data released principally by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, with some from the various school district offices, and the opinion evidence of experts explaining or interpreting the statistical data. The statement of facts thus is in the form of many tables, graphs, charts, diagrams, lists and numerical records, and the testimony of professional experts in school affairs interpreting, interpolating and explaining them. Thus, the court's findings from the very nature of the evidence are largely matters of opinion, and this court is in an equally good position with the Superior Court to examine the whole record for a determination of those facts ultimately affecting the constitutionality of the state system of public schools.

upon whom the main responsibility for funding the schools inevitably falls and through whose enactments the whole school system now under challenge was created and is now maintained.

Our responsibility in this case, as a court passing upon the constitutionality of the common school system of the state, its funding, financing and operations, is to stick to the issues and if possible avoid editorializing about the plight of the schools and their needs, and we take it we should stifle the tendency normally arising in a case of this sort to convey to the legislature and the board and the Superintendent of Public Instruction our view as to how the schools should be maintained and the kinds of taxes which should be imposed and the ways the revenues should be distributed to maintain them. We are concerned here with the issues of constitutionality and nothing else arising from a challenge to the statutory structure of the common school system of the state, a system embodied in a comprehensive Petitioners' contentions that they, as parents, children and school districts, are deprived of equal protection of the laws, are based largely on the assertion that comparative property values, being unequal among the 320 districts, inevitably reflect a disparity in the quality of educational opportunities among the districts. Districts having a higher assessed valuation per pupil, they say, have an easier time passing special school levies; since special school levies mean added revenue derived from added millage, the greater the appraised value, the more revenue from the same millage, and thus an even greater disparity, producing finally, it is argued, an inequality rising to unconstitutional proportions as the Percentage of state funds declines with the increasing percentage of local funding. Thus, it is argued that the ratio of state contributions compared to local contributions renders the existing scheme unconstitutional. Expressed otherwise, as the local funding increases, largely through special levies in relation to state funds, the state's percentage inevitably decreases.

code of education (RCW 28A) and an administrative code (WAC 180) implementing it.

Before considering the factual data put into...