Last week the Missouri Supreme Court upheld a 1993 state law that gives students living in unaccredited school districts the option to transfer to neighboring districts and requiring the failing district to pay for their tuition and transportation costs.
While some parents in unaccredited districts cheered the ruling, several education leaders in the region fear that the student transfers will bankrupt unaccredited school districts and overcrowd high-performing schools.
The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously overturned a May 2012 ruling by a St. Louis County court, which found the Missouri law unconstitutional and unenforceable. St. Louis County Circuit Judge David Lee Vincent III said schools could not comply with the mandate because of its severe budgetary consequences.
However, the Missouri Supreme Court stated, “The mandate that has long-existed for Missouri’s school districts is to provide a free public education to all students who attend, even when the students are nonresidents who are permitted under statutory directives to attend an out-of-district school.”
The 2007 lawsuit focused on a St. Louis city resident parent who had two children in Clayton Public schools, and she requested that Clayton bill the then-unaccredited St. Louis Public School District for her children’s tuition. The Clayton School District refused, and the parent and three other parents – who have since dropped out of the suit – sued the district.
Normandy and Riverview Gardens school districts are the only unaccredited schools in the region. The 10,000 students that attend these schools are eligible to transfer, along with the students who live in the district area but are currently attending private or home schools.
Administrators at Normandy and Riverview Gardens school districts did not respond to The St. Louis American’s request for comment.
“Without parameters, the ruling could have a negative effect,” said Don Senti, executive director for the Cooperating School Districts.
Setting those parameters now becomes essential, according to Sharmon Wilkinson, superintendent of Clayton Schools, who said she and other administrators were disappointed in the ruling.
“We still believe, as we have asserted throughout this case, that the issues at hand have broad implications for all school districts throughout St. Louis County and across the state of Missouri,” Wilkinson said.
“These issues still need to be resolved in a way that provides manageable parameters that protect the interests of students residing in both accredited and unaccredited school districts.”
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) set some parameters in a guidance document released on Wednesday.
“The unaccredited/sending district must provide transportation to at least one accredited receiving school district as established by its board of education,” DESE stated.
“If the parent or guardian chooses to enroll his/her student in a different accredited/receiving school, then the parent or guardian shall be responsible for transportation.”
Senti said that unaccredited school districts could go bankrupt from the decision.
“Even if 10 kids in every grade leave, Normandy won’t be able reduce staffing for just 10 kids,” Senti said. “At some point, they won’t be able to pay the bill. Their expenses for transfers are going to skyrocket.”
Senti said St. Louis-area schools have been accepting new students for 35 years through the desegregation program. That program initiated in 1980 from a court order, with the ultimate goal that districts achieve a 25 percent black student population. In that case, the state had to pay the transportation and tuition costs.
Senti said for the past three years, he and others have tried to get the Missouri Legislature to pass a bill that would set parameters for the state law. Yet all attempts have gotten tangled in politics, particularly among those pushing for school choice.
So far, Clayton has received inquiries from about three dozen students who want to transfer into the district. Senti said he does not have an exact number of how many students in total have requested transfers.
However, the school districts are working together to come up with a central location to process all transfer requests. In its guidance document, DESE stated that parents should notify districts of their transfer wishes by August 1 for this school year and by February 1 in future years.
Wilkinson said, “We, along with all of the school districts in both St. Louis and St. Charles counties, are working to comply with the court’s decision in a way that is in the best interests of all students and families involved.”
The DESE guidance document for student transfers is available at http://www.dese.mo.gov/documents/Transfer_Guidance.pdf.