Archdiocese sues on behalf of families and children over school bus fee

Criterion staff report

A second lawsuit was recently filed by the archdiocese on behalf of Catholic school parents and children who have been effectively denied public school transportation, according to archdiocesan officials.

The lawsuit, filed in Marion Superior Court in Indianapolis on April 1, involves decisions by the Lawrence Township School Board to change the way it provides school transportation for students of two archdiocesan schools that fall within the Lawrence Township district—St. Lawrence School and St. Simon the Apostle School.

The dispute started in November of 2009 when the principals of those two Catholic schools were informed that the Lawrence Township School Board had developed a new plan to charge a fee to those schools for their students to ride public school buses to their parochial schools.

Previously, the transportation had been provided—as required by Indiana law—at no cost, but the school board said it had to start charging a fee because of financial problems in the district. Lawrence Township sought to charge the two Catholic schools a fee based on a formula of $1 per mile per student, according to G. Joseph Peters, associate executive director of Catholic education for the archdiocese.

In response, the archdiocese filed a lawsuit in January against the school district, trying to prevent Lawrence Township from charging the fee and requesting a restraining order to prevent the disruption of bus service to the parochial schools, Peters noted.

In arguing the case, archdiocesan attorney John S. Mercer stated that the school district had an obligation under Indiana law to transport the parochial school students. He also noted that the school district had no authority to assess a fee for services to the non-public school.

He also referred to the Indiana law, which states, “When school children who are attending a parochial school in any school corporation reside on or along the public highway constituting the regular route of a public school bus, the governing body of the school corporation shall provide transportation for them on the school bus.”

The law further states, “This transportation shall be from their homes, or from some point on the regular route nearest or most easily accessible to their homes, to and from the parochial school or to and from the point on the regular route which is nearest or most easily accessible to the parochial school.”

After the two sides couldn’t reach an agreement in a court-ordered mediation, Judge Robyn L. Moberly issued her order. She noted that the non-public school students are transported to three middle schools in the district, where they then board shuttles to their Catholic schools. The judge then ruled, in essence, that Lawrence Township no longer had to provide shuttles from the middle schools to the Catholic schools, and that it was the Catholic schools’ responsibility to make possible this last leg of transportation.

“If the non-public schools request that transportation from the middle schools to their respective schools be provided by the defendant school corporation, then the non-public schools must pay the actual cost thereof,” Judge Moberly stated.

In a vote on March 22, the Lawrence Township School Board voted to stop the shuttle bus service from the middle schools to the Catholic schools on April 5.

The archdiocese filed a new lawsuit on April 1 on behalf of 11 parents and their children affected by the ruling.

“This suit is a different action from the first lawsuit in that it directly challenges the interpretation of the statue and the district’s decision not to transport the students,” Peters noted.

Archdiocesan officials believe the outcome of the first lawsuit could have major implications for both non-public and public schools.

“It is clear to us that the original intent of the legislation was to provide transportation to students in parochial schools on public school buses,” Peters noted. “The court’s ruling, if it stands, allows a public school corporation to make determinations about how such transportation is provided that effectively denies transportation to our students.” †