School Dist. No. 41 v. Pope County Board of Education

• Decision Date: 09 July 1928
• Docket Number: (No. 120.)
• Citation: 8 S.W.2d 501
• Parties: SCHOOL DIST. NO. 41 et al. v. POPE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

8 S.W.2d 501

SCHOOL DIST. NO. 41 et al. v. POPE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION.

(No. 120.)

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

July 9, 1928.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Pope County; J. T. Bullock, Judge.

Proceeding by the Pope County Board of Education for consolidation of certain school districts. Judgment affirming the action of the County Board consolidating such districts, and School District No. 41 and others appeal. Reversed and remanded, with directions.

Hays, Priddy & Rorex and Robert Bailey, all of Russellville, for appellants.

Ward & Caudle, of Russellville, for appellee.

KIRBY, J.

This appeal is from a judgment of affirmance by the circuit court of the action of the county board of education of Pope county, consolidating certain school districts in said county, the three causes being instituted separately and consolidated for a hearing by the board of education. The proceedings were instituted under the authority of Act 144 of the Acts of 1927, and no question is raised challenging the regularity of the procedure.

The board of education dissolved the districts upon proof of the record of attendance, made before the act was passed, during the school year ending June 30, 1927. Appellants insist that the board was without authority, under the provisions of Act 144 of 1927 enacted without the emergency clause, to dissolve the districts upon proof of the record of the average daily attendance below the requirement of said act, made before it became effective, and as shown by the record of attendance for the school year ending June 30, 1927, and this contention must be sustained.

Section 1 of said act provides:

"The county board of education of any county shall have the discretionary power to dissolve any school district whose length of school term shall not be one hundred twenty days in any school year, or whose average daily attendance does not exceed fifteen pupils, and attach the territory so dissolved to adjacent school district or districts. * * *"

The act was approved on the 16th day of March, 1927, but contained no emergency clause, and did not go into effect until 90 days after the adjournment of the Legislature on March 12, 1927, or until June 12, 1927. Arkansas Tax Commission v. Moore, 103 Ark. 48, 145 S. W. 199; St. Louis Iron Mountain & Sou. Railway Co. v. Roddy, 110 Ark. 161, 161 S. W. 156.

"A statute should have a prospective operation only, unless its terms show clearly a legislative intention that it should operate...