From The North Carolina Supreme Court in March is scheduled to hear oral arguments in a Beaufort County-based lawsuit that could affect the future of students who are suspended from public schools for long periods of time across North Carolina and the local school boards that hand down such suspensions.
The North Carolina Supreme Court in March is scheduled to hear oral arguments in a Beaufort County-based lawsuit that could affect the future of students who are suspended from public schools for long periods of time across North Carolina and the local school boards that hand down such suspensions.
The North Carolina Supreme Court in March is scheduled to hear oral arguments in a Beaufort County-based lawsuit that could affect the future of students who are suspended from public schools for long periods of time across North Carolina and the local school boards that hand down such suspensions.
At issue is the right of students who receive long-term suspensions to have access to an alternative education during their time away from school. Existing state law leaves such access to the discretion of local school boards.
One lawyer familiar with the case said it is one of the most significant education cases to appear before the state’s Supreme Court in a decade.
“There are a lot of advocates who feel this case is very important,” said Benita N. Jones, a lawyer with the University of North Carolina School of Law’s Center for Civil Rights. The center filed a brief on behalf of two Beaufort County students suspended from school in 2008. Referring to a 1997 case involving then-student Robert A. Leandro over school funding, Jones said, “This is the Leandro case of this decade.”
This is the second year in a row that a lawsuit involving the Beaufort County Board of Education has been before a state appellate court. Last year, the state high court ruled in favor of the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners in its case against the Beaufort County school board over school funding.
In papers filed with the Supreme Court, lawyers for the two students maintain that alternative education should be considered part of the right to a sound, basic education as specified by the Supreme Court in the Leandro case.
They say that given the types of alternative education available – including online and home-based courses – the court should require school boards to provide alternative education to students they suspend unless those boards find a compelling reason not to do so.
“More than 5,000 students in North Carolina were suspended from school long-term last year, excluded entirely from both the regular school building and alternative school. … Unless the school system can show that this banishment was necessary to promote a compelling governmental interest, it directly offends our Constitution,” writes Jane Wettach, a lawyer for the students, in an appellate brief to the Supreme Court.
Lawyers for the school board argue that the right of North Carolina public school students to an education is an opportunity that can be forfeited by bad behavior.
“The obstacles local boards of education face in maintaining safe and orderly schools are formidable, and events calling for discipline … sometimes require immediate, effective action. … Our appellate courts have thus affirmed that students may temporarily forfeit the right to attend public school through noncompliance with reasonable rules and regulations,” writes Curtis M. “Trey” Allen III, a lawyer for the school board, in a Supreme Court brief.
School board lawyers also say the decision the provide alternative education to students receiving long-term suspensions should continue to rest where the General Assembly intended it – with local school systems.
Although not considered to be a landmark in education law, the case could be “significant,” said Ann McColl, general counsel for the N.C. Association of School Administrators, one of two state education groups that have filed briefs supporting the school board’s decision.
“The General Assembly has established laws regarding alternative education and has left to local school boards and administrators the discretion of offering alternative education to students,” she said. “It will be interesting to see how much deference the court gives to the General Assembly in establishing these guidelines.”
If the high court rules in favor of the two Beaufort County students, educators will be watching whether the court makes any provision to fund alternative education, which is now left to local school systems, she said.
“If the court mandates alternative education, will it require the state to provide funds to the schools for that education,” she said.
The case now before the state’s high court was filed against the local school board on behalf of Viktoria King and Jessica Hardy, who were 10th grade students at Southside High School when a fight broke out Jan. 18, 2008, at the school. As a result of the fight, they were suspended from school for 10 days beginning Jan. 24, 2008. Subsequently, then-School Superintendent Jeffrey Moss followed a recommendation from then-Principal Todd Blumenreich that the students be suspended for the rest of the 2007-2008 school year.
In a ruling Oct. 20, 2009, two of three judges on the state Court of Appeals sided with the local school board, saying that the ability of students subjected to long-term suspensions to receive alternative education during their suspensions should be left to the discretion of local school boards.
But a third judge disagreed, saying that previous court decisions over school funding establish that the right to education is a fundamental right under the North Carolina Constitution and a long-term suspension that doesn’t include alternative education violates that right.
That dissent guaranteed lawyers for the students the right to appeal the case to the state’s high court.
The case has drawn the attention of civil rights groups from across the state and nation who have filed Amicus Curiae or Friend-of-the-Court briefs on behalf of the students. Among those groups are the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation, Council for Children’s Rights, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., North Carolina Conference of NAACP Branches, Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Southern Poverty Law Center and about two dozen other state and national groups.
And in a rare move, retired state Appeals and Supreme Court Judge Robert F. Orr has entered the legal fray – writing a brief stating that the Appeals Court erred when it sided with the school board.
The case has drawn the attention of two state education organizations. The N.C. School Boards Association has filed a brief on behalf of the school board in addition to the N.C. Association of School Administrators.
The state Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case during the fourth week of March.
Source: Washington Daily News Online
From http://www.wdnweb.com/articles/2010/02/11/news/doc4b7352bb50b4d137063076.txt