Decatur Parents Lose Bid to Keep Elementary School Open

By Leslie Reed, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.

Oct. 6–LINCOLN — In its most explicit statement on the subject to date, the Nebraska Supreme Court declared that the state’s guarantee of free instruction in the public schools does not create a fundamental right to equal and adequate funding of schools.

The declaration came Friday in a case in which the high court rejected an effort by parents to keep an elementary school open in Decatur, Neb.

The ruling reinforced a May school finance decision, in which the Supreme Court rejected a challenge by a coalition of rural schools that Nebraska’s school aid formula was unfair to them.

“No doubt Nebraska’s children are entitled to a free education,” wrote Judge William Connolly in Friday’s unanimous decision, referring to the Nebraska Constitution.

“Nevertheless . . . prudential and practical considerations require that we not intervene in fiscal policy decisions regarding education.”

The Decatur case began when the school board for the consolidated Lyons-Decatur school district voted in 2005 to discontinue offering grades four through six at the Decatur school. School officials said declining enrollments and state aid reductions forced them to make the change, which would save more than $200,000 per year.

The building later was completely closed, said David Drew, an attorney who represented a coalition of parents and taxpayers who fought to keep the school open.

They argued that the Lyons-Decatur school board had violated an agreement made when Lyons and Decatur merged in 1984.

That agreement promised Decatur would keep an elementary school unless the school board voted unanimously to close the building, or a majority of people in the former Decatur school district voted to close it.

The high court affirmed a Burt County District Court ruling that said the merger agreement was unenforceable. It also rejected the parents’ arguments that the district had shortchanged students in the Decatur building.

Connolly wrote that the same principles that apply to the Legislature’s decisions governing school districts across the state also apply to local school boards’ decisions governing school buildings within their borders.

“Holding that the Nebraska Constitution provides a fundamental right to equal school funding of schools would affect discretionary-legislative decisions at both the local and state level,” he wrote.

“We conclude that the free-instruction clause does not provide a fundamental right to equal and adequate funding of schools.”

The high court concluded that the Lyons-Decatur reorganization agreement was not enforceable because state law does not authorize public votes on closing a school by only a portion of a school district. Such votes must include the entire school district, the court ruled.

Lincoln attorney Jim Gessford, who has handled many school reorganizations during his 30-year career, said the high court’s ruling on the voting provisions answers a long-debated school law question.

Elizabeth Eynon-Kokrda, an Omaha attorney who represents the Omaha Public Schools in a case challenging the school finance formula, said she did not think the Decatur decision harms the OPS case, which raises discrimination issues based on race and national origin.

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