school board authorized to impose a fee to offset costs of lunch program
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- school board authorized to impose a fee to offset costs of lunch program
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mr. JUSTICE UNVERZAGT, dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from the opinion of the majority. The majority’s assertion that providing a secure place to eat lunch without interference from others cannot be considered an educational process is but an ipse dixit.
Leonard Roberts, superintendent of schools at School District No. 44, testified that two-thirds of the student body goes home for lunch and one-third of the student body remains in the schools; that students who stay at school for their lunch are supervised by persons employed by the school district for that purpose. They are lay people, nonteachers or non-certified people, in most instances. These persons watch the lunchroom while the students are eating, and then watch the playground or some other recreational area between the time the children are finished eating lunch and the time that class is taken up again after lunch. The duties of the lunch-time supervisors are to make sure that the youngsters are able to eat in an atmosphere where they aren’t harassed and where the children can eat and have a reasonably wholesome type of lunchroom period. The supervisors discipline the children when necessary. When the children are on the playground the supervisors make sure that the youngsters play in an organized way; they make certain no one is injured and resolve any minor student disputes that arise in the process of playing the games. Mr. Roberts characterized this as a baby-sitting service for the youngsters who stay for lunch.
Harold C. Wright, regional superintendent of schools of Du Page County, testified that the District No. 44 lunchroom program provides for the further social maturation of students. It helps them to learn to get along with their peers; that is one of the results school administrators hope to accomplish.
It seems to me that supervision of children during the school day, and creating an atmosphere where they are not harassed and where they have a reasonably wholesome atmosphere, and providing for discipline and play in an organized way, and making sure the children are not injured and minor student disputes are resolved, all in a manner which provides for further social maturation, are “instructional” matters, well within the educational services and goals of the public school.
The Constitution of this State provides:
° ° Education in public schools through the secondary level shall be free. * ° Ill. Const. 1970, art. X, §1.
In explaining this provision, the Education Committee of the Sixth Illinois Constitutional Convention submitted its proposal which was adopted by the committee as a whole. That proposal included the following:
“The third paragraph contains two parts: •
(1) It requires that public schools through the secondary level shall be free. The Committee considers it necessary that the Constitution state, in explicit terms, the obligation of the State to provide free public schools for what has traditionally been considered common school education. ° ° °.
* * * It would, however, require that whatever educational programs are established as part of the public school system through the secondary level be free of tuition charges for resident pupils.” 6 Record of Proceedings, Sixth Illinois Constitutional Convention 235.
Tuition is defined as “the price of or payment for instruction.” (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 2461 (1966).) It seems to me that the fee charges here in issue can be considered “the price of or payment for instruction”; instruction in the art of civilized living during the noon hour. As such, these fees are prohibited by the constitutional mandate of “free” schools.
I agree with the trial judge that a school district undertaking to provide school lunch services may not charge for the use of the facilities or the supervision of the children making use of those facilities.
I would affirm the court below.