Judge Rules Against Student Transfers in Turner v. Clayton Case
The decision was announced Tuesday, the "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" reported. The Webster Groves School District has similar student transfer cases in the court system.
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A judge on Tuesday ruled in favor of the School District of Clayton in a widely-watched case that deals with the transfer of students from unaccredited schools to accredited ones, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Quoting from the Post-Dispatch article:
"Under the ruling, students from unaccredited school districts would not have the right to transfer to better school districts for free."
Judge David Lee Vincent III presided over a three-day trial about the case in March, where witnesses said allowing the students to transfer would bankrupt St. Louis Public Schools and be an unfunded mandate for county schools.
The case has been in the legislature and courts for the last five years without a resolution.
(Read the complete Turner v. Clayton ruling issued Tuesday in the PDF attached.)
Chief Communications Officer Chris Tennill of the School District of Clayton said the district is "thrilled" with the ruling.
"This is a statute that, in its current form, doesn't work the way it's intended to," said Tennill, describing how the ruling by Judge David Lee Vincent III aligns with the district's positions on student transfers.
He said it's unclear whether plaintiffs will appeal the case, so the district will take a wait-and-see approach for the immediate future. If it is appealed, he said, the district is prepared to continue facing the issue of transfers with the "same dedication and intensity" as it has for the last five years.
Elkin Kistner, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said he has 40 days from Tuesday to file an appeal. He isn't sure when the filing will occur.
"That's the reason appeals exist," Kistner said.
As for the ruling, he said: "It's not good news."
The Webster Groves School District is also facing similar student transfer cases. In March, the Missouri Supreme Court overturned a lower court's ruling ordering the district enroll a teen in its high school. In January, city firefighters sued the Webster Groves, Kirkwood and Lindbergh school districts for the right to send their children there.
Sarah Riss, the district's superintendent, said on Tuesday she preferred not to comment on the Turner case and instead referred Patch to officials at the Clayton School District since it is their case.
See related stories:
- Lawmakers See Little Hope for Education Bill
- Missouri Supreme Court Rules Against Plaintiff in Webster School Transfer Case
- City Firefighters Sue Webster, Kirkwood, Lindbergh School Districts
- School Districts to Legislature: Save Us From Flood of Students
UPDATE: This article was updated at 4:10 p.m. with a statement from the plaintiff.
Patch editors Sheri Gassaway and Gregg Palermo contributed information to this article.
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School District of Clayton
#2 Mark Twain Circle, Clayton, MO -
Webster Groves School District
400 E Lockwood Ave, Saint Louis, MO -
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Bill Kowalski
9:11 am on Thursday, May 3, 2012
I commend this judge for a highly sensible decision, unlike some that have been made in the past few decades regarding education and have created many new problems without improving anything.
Having students from other cities transfer to Webster Groves schools without any means to pay the huge cost of educating them is a poor substitute for a real fix for "failing" schools. It would be an educational shell game, and both districts would lose. St. Louis needs to improve its unaccredited schools, period, and not expect other school districts and their taxpayers to provide alternatives. Citizens should be mindful of the educational opportunities before they establish residency in any city, and when deciding whether to remain or relocate.
William B. Drendel
1:51 pm on Thursday, May 3, 2012
This ruling completely misses the obvious and just solution, and that is the reasonable implementation of the existing law within the current means of the county schools. This would prevent any impossibility argument and any claim to an unfunded mandate. If each school were required to accept a few percent of its current enrollment with tuition being paid by SLPS this would cause no problems for country schools, would accomodate most or all of the students likely to want to transfer, and still sanction SLPS for having failed its students, just as the law was intended to do. Instead the ruling further entrenches a school funding system that simultaneously perpetuates the dynastic wealth of white people on the one hand and the generational poverty of minorities on the other. And in keeping with the past 400 or so years of history, the African Americans have lost once again. Tens of thousands of mostly African American students continue to be trapped by the courts of Missouri in a failed, unaccredited school system, in many cases for their entire elementary and secondary school career. The decision completely ignores the Missouri state constitution's guaranteed right that all students have access to a free public education. School years spent entirely in an unaccredited district hardly qualify as an education. The only lesson these students are learning is that the state of Missouri doesn't give a damn about them. I side with those who've been robbed of their future by MO.