Page 10 of the Gray Commission Report outlines a plan to fund tuition grants and transportation costs for families who refuse to send their children to integrated schools, ensuring that local school boards have discretion over these expenditures. It proposes that state and local funds be allocated for tuition grants, with legal penalties for misuse, and that school budgets be required to include sufficient funds for such payments. Additionally, the report recommends that the state reimburse localities for half of the additional costs incurred from these tuition grants, further reinforcing the effort to resist enforced integration.
Tag
Educational funds; tuition grants; elementary or secondary school; transportation costs; local school boards; school budgets; prevent enforced integration; parents object to attendance at mixed schools; total cost of operation per pupil in average daily attendance
Assignments would be based upon the welfare of the particular child
as well as the welfare and best interests of all other pupils attending a
particular school. The school board should be authorized to take into con-
sideration such factors as availability of facilities, health, aptitude of the
child and the availability of transportation.
Children who have heretofore attended a particular public school
would not be reassigned to a different one except for good cause shown.
A child who has not previously attended a public school or whose residence
has changed, would be assigned as aforesaid.
Any parent, guardian or other person having custody of a child, who
objects to the assignment of his child to a particular school under the
provisions of the act should have the right to make application within
fifteen days after the giving of the notice of the particular assignment
to the local school board for a review of its action. The application should
contain the specific reasons why the child should not attend the school
assigned and the specific reasons why the child should be assigned to a
different school named in the application. After the application is re-
ceived by the local school board a hearing would be held within forty-five
days and, after hearing evidence, the school board would determine to
what school the child should be assigned.
An appeal if taken should be permitted from the final order of the
school board within fifteen days. The appeal would be to the circuit or
corporation court. The local school board would be made a defendant in
this action and the case heard and determined de novo by the judge of the
court, either in term or in vacation. If either party be aggrieved by the
order of the court, an appeal should be permitted to the Supreme Court
of Appeals of Virginia.
2. That no child be required to attend an integrated school.
3. That the sections of the Code relating to the powers and duties
of school boards relative. to transportation of pupils be amended so as to
provide that school boards may furnish transportation for pupils.
In the opinion of the Commission, such is merely a restatement of
existing law. However, it is felt that it should be made perfectly clear
that no county school board be required to furnish transportation to school
children.
4. That changes be made in the law relating to the assignment of
teachers.
Local school boards should be vested with the authority to employ
teachers and assign them to a particular school. The division superin-
tendent should be permitted to assign a particular teacher to a particular
position in the school, but not to assign the teacher to a school different
from that to which such teacher was assigned by the local school board
without the consent of such board.
5. That localities be authorized to raise sums of money by a tax on
property, subject to local taxation, to be expended by local school authorities
for educational purposes including cost of transportation and to receive
and expend State aid for the same purposes.
Those localities wherein no public schools are operated should be
authorized to provide for an educational levy or a cash appropriation in
lieu of such levy. The maximum amount of the levy or cash appropriation,
as the case may be, should be limited in the same manner as school levies
or school appropriations are limited.
