Last week, the Commonwealth Court arrived at a decision that will significantly impact the transportation schedules, cost of operations, and protocols for safely ensuring transportation to students in public, charter and private schools.
In Timothy Watts v. Manheim School District, the court was faced with a question not previously addressed in Pennsylvania: is a school district obligated to transport a student to and from multiple residences within the same school district? The court concluded that it was. Here is our bulletproof analysis.
The Facts of the Case
The student in this case, C.W., was a child of divorced parents and was subject to a 50/50 joint-custody arrangement where he lived with his mother every other week and his father on the alternating weeks. Both parents resided in the school district but were on different bus routes. The parents resided approximately two miles apart, with a heavily-trafficked highway in between. The district had been providing transportation to multiple locations within the district, including to residences of different parents who were either separated or divorced, as was the case for C.W., but the Board decided to discontinue that practice as a cost-cutting measure. C.W.’s parents were notified that the district would discontinue transportation to the father’s residence and would provide full-year transportation to the mother’s home only. The father filed suit.
The Court’s Analysis
The school district did not deny that C.W. was a “resident pupil,” nor did it deny that it had an obligation to transport all resident pupils. The school’s argument was that the manner in which a school district chooses to provide transportation to a resident pupil falls within a school’s discretionary powers due to the fact that there is no statutory mandate, to be determined by board policy in the absence of specific legal authority. In its analysis, and in the absence of specific statutory language or caselaw regarding transportation, the court relied on a series of peripherally-related cases and statutory provisions. The court’s analysis also utilized some fairly deft legal maneuvering under the PA Statutory Construction Act, which contains a provision that requires the court to read not only one section of a piece of legislation in a vacuum, but, rather, in light of the surrounding sections of law. This allowed the court to reference provisions of the School Code not directly on point and draw conclusions regarding transportation obligations from those provisions.
The (Rather Costly) Implications
The implications of the court’s holding in this case are significant and potentially very costly to school districts, particularly for those that do not currently have a practice of transporting students to multiple locations. In its conclusion, the court states that “the failure of parents (or the attorneys who represent them) to include school transportation in custody arrangements can lead to complications for taxpayer-funded schools.”
Based upon a reading of this case, however, the court does not appear to realize that it is this holding, itself, that will lead to such complications, separate and apart from any particular custody language. The court does not acknowledge or even touch upon the potential application of the holding of this case to any number of situations where there is no custody agreement, the parents do not adhere to the custody agreement already between the parties or where there is not a clean-cut 50/50 split among custodial parents, as existed in the Watts case. Frustratingly, the court does not restrict its holding to the specific facts in question or discuss how the holding might be expanded to other situations. The court focuses on whether the location is a residence or “dwelling,” not how much time the student spends there, how consistent the custody arrangement is or even whether there is a custody arrangement at all. Does this now mean that schools would be required to reserve a seat on a bus route for the student to use only on Fridays? What about cases where the custody arrangement is fluid and not fixed, where the days of the week vary according to the parents’ work schedules? What about cases where a child stays overnight with a grandparent or other individual on a regular basis for childcare purposes?
The analysis set forth in the case of looking at whether the pupil is a resident in the home on at least a part-time basis paints with such a broad brush that it would suggest that the schools may still have an obligation to transport in those cases. In addition, there are other logistical problems that could impose potential liability for a public school . . . What happens when a young student forgets and gets on the wrong bus? What will schools be expected to do in cases where the parents informally change the custody arrangements without notifying the school? In addition to the clear financial cost of the necessity of reserving two bus seats and routes for the students, these practical considerations make this ruling particularly difficult for schools, both logistically and economically.
This holding is particularly unfortunate in this challenging time of overburdened and underfunded schools. In a decision that reads like a thinly-veiled attempt to make public policy out of a patchwork of loosely-related laws not quite on point, the court was unequivocal in its determination that schools must transport student to and from wherever they reside within the district on any given day. What the court fails to understand, though, is that the effects and costs of implementation of this ruling will substantially, and negatively, impact the education of all children by creating a new mandate that did not clearly exist under a plain-language reading of the School Code.
The Bottom Line
For now, this ruling appears to be limited to only those students who have two separate residences within the boundaries of the district and arguably only in cases of a 50/50 split based upon the facts of this, although the court’s broad analysis leaves that issue open for debate. Schools do not need to transport students to and from different locations other than residences (for childcare purposes, etc.) or to residences outside of district boundaries. It is possible that the district, in this case, will appeal, and that the higher court would reverse this decision.
In the meantime, however, schools should contact their solicitors to ensure that their current practices are in-line with this new requirement and to assist in developing legally-defensible policies.
School Law Bullets are a publication of the KingSpry Education Law Practice Group. John E. Freund, III, is our editor. The article is meant to be informational and does not constitute legal advice.
