| The December 6 1996, trial ruling by the Superior Court against the school districts | Page 44 |
The Superior Court stated that the petitioner school district's facilities must meet the state's definition of educational adequacy, which incorporates the Minimum Standards. The great disparities that exist between the petitioner school districts and the comparison schools were disregarded by the Superior Court as not the subject of pertinent legal inquiry.
The school districts argued that testimony describing the petitioner districts facilities, the viewings by the Superior Court, and the evidentiary photographs, should have led the Superior Court to conclude that the conditions of the facilities violated the following requirements of the Minimum Standards which state that all schools must provide:
1. a clean, healthy, and safe environment.The Superior Court did not make a factual finding about the quality and conditions of facilities in the petitioner school districts. Rather, the Superior Court cited the failure of the school districts to notify the Department of Education that their facilities were in violation of the Minimum Standards.2. a sufficient number of classrooms/instructional spaces for the total school enrollment.
3. properly designed specialized spaces for the teaching of science, art, music, industrial arts/technology, consumer and homemaking education, and physical education.
4. sufficient space to house the school's information/technology resources acquired and maintained in accordance with Ed. 306.15.
5. ancillary spaces, including bathrooms, offices, and areas for the storage of supplies, materials, and equipment.
The Court referred to generalized, positive statements contained in the school districts' annual reports as evidence that the school districts did not fully inform their local school boards or the voters in their districts of the conditions of the schools.
Disregarding the 800 photographs and its tour of the facilities, the Superior Court stated, "Again, the contrast between the testimony adduced at trial and prior statements makes it difficult for the Court to determine the actual state of facilities in the petitioner districts". Witnesses from the school districts testified that they accented the positive in their annual reports to emphasize that progress was being made.
The Court also found it a contradiction that the school districts failed to inform the NEASC, the accreditation agency for New England's schools, of the existence of violations of state Minimum Standards or of NEASC standards in their schools.
The Superior Court misconstrued the accreditation process of the NEASC in its analysis. The 1985 NEASC guidelines, pursuant to which the petitioner school districts were accredited, did not look for compliance with state's Minimum Standards. The accreditation process sought only to encourage schools to improve no matter how poorly they were operated. In 1995 the NEASC upgraded its accreditation process to include minimum or threshold standards that a school has to maintain in order to receive accreditation. Pamela Gray Bennet of the NEASC testified that her agency does not rely on the state's Minimum Standards in its determinations. A school could have been accredited without meeting some of the state's Minimum Standards.
 |
Back | Next |  |