Welling v. Board of Ed. for Livonia School Dist.

• Citation: 382 Mich. 620,171 N.W.2d 545
• Decision Date: 06 November 1969
• Docket Number: Nos. 26,27,s. 26
• Parties: Dale WELLING et al., Plaintiffs and Appellees, v. The BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR the LIVONIA SCHOOL DISTRICT, and Rolland Upton, Superintendent of Schools, Jointly and Severally, Defendants and Appellants. Lee WAGSTAFF et al., Plaintiffs and Appellees, v. The BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR the LIVONIA SCHOOL DISTRICT, and Rolland Upton, Superintendent of Schools, Jointly and Severally, Defendants and Appellants. Stanley W. KURZMAN et al., Plaintiffs and Appellees, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR the WATERFORD SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 545

171 N.W.2d 545

382 Mich. 620

Dale WELLING et al., Plaintiffs and Appellees, v. The BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR the LIVONIA SCHOOL DISTRICT, and Rolland Upton, Superintendent of Schools, Jointly and Severally, Defendants and Appellants.

Lee WAGSTAFF et al., Plaintiffs and Appellees, v. The BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR the LIVONIA SCHOOL DISTRICT, and Rolland Upton, Superintendent of Schools, Jointly and Severally, Defendants and Appellants.

Stanley W. KURZMAN et al., Plaintiffs and Appellees, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR the WATERFORD SCHOOL DISTRICT,

Defendant and Appellant.

Nos. 26, 27.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Nov. 6, 1969.

James E. McCarthy, Kenneth J. Morris, Livonia, for Dale welling.

Robert M. Thrun, Lansing, for Bd. of Ed. for Livonia School Dist.

Maurice N. Blake, Detroit, for Lee Wagstaff.

Stanley W. Kurzman, pro per.

John T. Rogers, Pontiac, for Bd. of Ed. for Waterford School Dist.

Before BRENNAN, C.J., and DETHMERS, KELLY, BLACK, T. M. KAVANAGH, ADAMS and T. G. KAVANAGH, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

Plaintiffs sought mandamus or a mandatory injunction to require defendant school boards to provide a full day of instruction for all students in the Livonia and Waterford School Districts. The trial courts granted mandatory injunctions. The matters are here on our grant of by-pass of the Court of Appeals.

Mandamus or a mandatory injunction lies only to enforce the performance of a clear legal duty.

'The legislature shall maintain and support a system of free public elementary and secondary schools as defined by law.' (Const.1963, art. 8, § 2).

The legislature has set up a system of free public elementary and secondary schools by enacting the provisions of the School Code.

'Leadership and general supervision over all public education * * * is vested in a state board of education.' (Const.1963, art. 8, § 3).

It is the responsibility of the state board of education to supervise the system of free public schools set up by the legislature and, as a part of that responsibility, to promulgate regulations specifying the number of hours necessary to constitute a school day for elementary school students as well as for other classifications or groupings of students, to determine the curricula and, in general, to exercise leadership and supervision over the public school system.

In the absence of rules or regulation by the state board of education, we do not find that the provisions for one-half day sessions because of lack of funds to operate on a full-day schedule or for the teaching of certain subjects on a compressed schedule constitute an abuse of discretion by the local school board.

Since no clear legal duty has been imposed upon the local school boards by the constitutionally responsible state board of education, no relief should have been granted to the plaintiffs in these cases.

Reversed. No costs, a public question being involved.

BLACK, Justice (concurring).

The controlling question in these cases is whether the length of a school day, in Michigan's 'system of free public elementary and secondary schools as defined by law' (Const.1963, article 8, section 2), is determinable validly by legislation; specifically by P.A.1967, No. 237. Our answer is 'No.'

An eventful transfer from the legislature to the state board of education, of overall authority to administer the aforesaid system, has been overlooked in the course of these legal proceedings. Formerly the constitutional responsibility for such administration, with duties 'prescribed by law,' devolved upon an elected superintendent of public instruction (Const.1908, article 11, section 2). By the constitution of 1963, however, the farmers proposed and the people adopted a new policy for administration of the system. Now the state board of education, unfettered by those qualifying words 'prescribed by law' or 'provided by law,' is armed and charged exclusively with the power and responsibility of administering the public school system which the legislature has set up and now maintains pursuant to section 2 of the Eighth Article. By section 3 of the same Article, the board has been directed--not by the legislature but by the people--to lead and superintend the system and become, exclusively, the administrative policy-maker thereof. ¹ That specific directive having come from the people, the legislature may not by law interfere with its execution by the board; hence our negative answer above.

The record before us discloses that the state board of education proposed, and distributed for the purposes of a public hearing conducted November 15, 1968, a suggested policy-making rule which, had it been placed in effect, would have solved all questions which the parties to these consolidated cases have briefed and argued. That rule, well within the administrative authority of the state board of education as we find, is not for this Court or any court to review either for wisdom or test as against...