Opinion

Slippery Rock Area School District v. Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School

  • 612 Pa. 486
  • 31 A.3d 657
  • 2011 Pa. LEXIS 2818
Court
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Filed
Nov 23, 2011
Status
Published
Author
Saylor
On the bench
Castille, Saylor, Eakin, Baer, Todd, McCaffery, Melvin
Cited by
13 cases

The opinion

Justice SAYLOR,

concurring.

Although I support the result reached by the majority opinion, I differ with its perspective that “[tjhere is no justification for reading ‘board of school directors’ to include the board of trustees at the charter school.” Majority Opinion, at 500, 31 A.3d at 665. In fact, the General Assembly’s use of the technique of incorporation by reference to extend general provisions of the Public School Code into the cyber school context, see 24 P.S. § 17-1749-A, requires similar translative efforts in many other material respects. I also have difficulty with the majority’s vision of a demarcation between age of admission and funding, see Majority Opinion, at 503-04, 31 A.3d at 667, in light of the constraints on a charter school’s ability to independently generate revenues, see 24 P.S. § 17-1725-A(a)(l) (“There shall be no tuition charge for a resident or nonresident student attending a charter school”). For these and other reasons, I believe this is a closer case than is reflected on the face of the majority opinion.

In the end, however, I find the governing statute to be materially ambiguous and believe that, if the General Assembly wishes local school districts to fund cyber-kindergarten programs where the district has validly exercised its discretion not to offer a public-school analogue, such an intention should be made plainer.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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