The Franklin Busing Case Looks Back To Nagy Opinion
Kyle Stokes / StateImpact Indiana
A case over whether or not families should pay busing fees in Franklin Township has made its way all the way to the state Supreme Court.
The Indiana Supreme Court began hearing arguments Monday in the case against Franklin Township schools’ decision to eliminate busing services and replace it with a private service, which parents had to pay for.
As we’ve reported, parents sued, it went through the court system, and is now in front of the five judge panel at the state Supreme Court.
The Indiana Business Journal writes that lawyers representing the parents are citing another case involving parent fees in a public school system:
One of the key precedents argued Monday was a 2006 Supreme Court case in which the state’s high court determined that a $20 transportation fee in the Evansville-Vanderburgh district violated the constitutional guarantee of education.
Ian Thompson, an attorney for the Franklin schools parent who brought the lawsuit, argued that the ruling in Nagy v. Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corp. should go beyond simply barring fees to also mandating public transportation for students.
“Take Nagy one step further that not only may they not charge a fee, but by discontinuing a service that falls within what’s considered a uniform system of public education, they are not following their constitutional mandate,” Thompson argued.
But Chief Justice Loretta Rush grilled Thompson over whether he was asking too much of the court.
“Where does it end?” she asked. “What you want us to do is to read into the educational clause a constitutional right for public transportation to schools throughout Indiana and take that decision-making away from the General Assembly.”
Looking at the state constitution, which doesn’t explicitly say what school districts can charge parents, the fuzziness around this case is evident:
“…it should be the duty of the General Assembly to encourage, by all suitable means, moral, intellectual scientific, and agricultural improvement; and provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall without charge, and equally open to all.”
Tuition is not defined, and this vagueness is playing out in this case as well as a push by the Department of Education to cover textbook costs for all families.
The Nagy opinion explains how the judges viewed this clause of the constitution in how it relates to school fees:
However, unlike constitutions in a number of states, the framers of Indiana’s constitution were careful not to provide for a free school system. Rather, at most the framers provided that tuition would be free, or more precisely “tuition shall be without charge.” This is a subtle distinction, but a significant one that we believe the framers made intentionally. A free public school system implies a level of educational subsidization that the framers at least did not endorse and at most rejected outright.
Because the Nagy case addressed a general fee that could be considered tuition — a direct violation of the Constitution — and this case addresses busing services, the interpretation of the constitution and the findings in Nagy will most likely differ.
