Hub must fund private school busing, city's counsel says
Boston school Superintendent Carol R. Johnson was planning a bold but controversial cost-saving step for next year: halting a decades-long practice of busing students to parochial and private schools, a quietly treasured perk among the families involved.
But the city's chief legal counsel determined that the department has a legal obligation to pick up the approximately $2.2 million tab, overriding a legal opinion the School Department obtained from its own lawyer last year.
"Based on the legal opinion from the City of Boston's Corporation Counsel, we have reinstated to the budget proposal funds to support transportation of private and parochial school students, rather than put the district or City at risk of legal challenge," Johnson said in a statement yesterday.
Dot Joyce, the mayor's spokeswoman, refused to make a copy of the newest legal opinion public, citing attorney-client privilege.
The district covers the traveling costs of about 2,000 private and parochial students, who attend 45 schools. Elementary and middle school students take the yellow school buses, costing the district about $1.9 million, while high school students receive free passes to use public transportation, costing about $317,000.
The prospect of cutting the perk at a time when the department is facing the possible elimination of more than 500 jobs has been highly contentious, pitting some city and school officials against one another.
Some find the notion of paying to transport students out of district while cutting classroom teachers unconscionable.
Others feel it is wrong to ask families, many of whom are poor, to pick up busing costs, arguing that their flight to private schools reflects dissatisfaction with the city's public schools.
"The small money spent on private transportation is really peanuts compared to what you would pay for the kids if they enrolled in Boston public schools," said Councilor John Tobin, who believes that many families turn to private options when the city fails to assign their children to a neighborhood school.
Tobin said he is open to cutting the perk if the proposal includes an overhaul of the way the district assigns students to schools. The district is considering scrapping the city's three sprawling student-assignment zones in favor of five smaller ones, but the plan has been rife with controversy.
Under state law, school districts are required to provide students transportation to a private or parochial school when the school is more than 2 miles from the child's home.
However, the law also requires school districts to transport students shorter distances if the district does that for students in public schools. For example, some students who live within walking distance of their schools, in so-called "walk zones," are bused so they don't have to walk across dangerous roadways.
William Sinnott, the corporation counsel, said in an e-mail yesterday that state law entitles students who attend private or parochial schools the same right to transportation as public school students.
It remained unclear yesterday why the School Department had believed it possessed the legal authority to make the cut.
Johnson and her staff researched the cost-cutting proposal for more than a year and received a legal opinion from its attorney last winter justifying the cut. The department cited attorney-client privilege in refusing to release a copy of the opinion, even though the letter was discussed at the Feb. 27, 2008, School Committee meeting.
But on the School Department's website yesterday was a summary of that meeting, which included a one-sentence quotation from the adviser: "Boston is under virtually no legal obligation to transport students to private and parochial schools."
The dueling legal opinions emerged as a point of contention at Wednesday night's School Committee meeting with members of the Black Educators Alliance of Massachusetts, a professional group that represents many Boston teachers and administrators, demanding that officials make the opinions public.
Afterward, the board approved a $812 million budget for next year that included the reinstated private transportation spending along with more than 500 job cuts.
The budget, which only encompasses spending covered by local revenue and state aid, represents a 2.5 percent decrease from this year.
Yesterday, hundreds of parents rallied at the State House, hoping to persuade the governor and the Legislature to send more money to the city to avert the job cuts. They advocated for a larger share of federal stimulus funds and support for legislation that would enable communities to raise more revenue, such as increasing the local meals and lodging taxes.
Karina Meiri, a Boston Latin School parent and an organizer, said that in light of the massive job cuts, paying for private school transportation should not be a budget priority.
"What we are interested in is keeping more teachers in the classroom," she said in a phone interview.
The Archdiocese of Boston yesterday welcomed the reinstatement of the transportation money.
"The safe transportation of school children is a priority for all schools, public or private," archdiocese spokesman Terrence C. Donilon wrote in an e-mail.
"It certainly is an important consideration for families when considering a Catholic education. We appreciate the many difficult issues facing all cities and towns at this time." 