Request By:
Mr. Robert Arvin, Superintendent
Oldham County Schools
P.O. Box 207
LaGrange, Kentucky 40031
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Robert L. Chenoweth, Assistant Attorney General
You have asked the Office of the Attorney General to consider a matter of a first grade student who has been declared legally blind. You stated the parents of this child have requested daily transportation from Crestwood to the Kentucky School for the Blind in Louisville. You have specifically asked the office to advise you whether the Oldham County Board of Education is obligated by law to provide daily transportation and the cost therefor for this child who is attending the Kentucky School for the Blind as a day student.
As you stated in your letter the applicable section of our school laws is KRS 157.280. This statute provides for affording children in separate classifications of exceptionality an appropriate educational program by a school district contracting with another school district or a private organization, if necessary. The statute does not refer to either the Kentucky School for the Blind (KSB) at Louisville or the Kentucky School for the Deaf (KSD) at Danville, other than as follows in subsection (3):
"If a child of compulsory school age is admitted for instruction at the Kentucky School for the Deaf or the Kentucky School for the Blind, under regulation of the state board of education and under provisions of KRS 167.015 to 167.150, the district in which the child resides shall provide transportation to and from the school on a regularly scheduled basis, at intervals of no less than once each month while the child is enrolled, either by individual district or in cooperation with other school districts on a regional basis, as approved by the state board of education upon recommendation of the superintendent of public instruction."
You mentioned that this subsection provides for a monthly transportation of residential students but makes no provision for day students.
We do not read KRS 157.280(3) as making any distinction between "residential students" and "day students" at KSB or KSD. The language of the statute is a child "admitted for instruction" at either of the two residential schools operated under and controlled by the state board of education. Thus, we are of the opinion that the plain language of the statute requires a local school district only to provide transportation to and from either of these two schools on a regularly scheduled basis, at intervals of no less than one each month. Even though a child is a so-called "day student" at KSB or KSD, the school district where the child resides is only mandated to pay the transportation cost to and from the state schools once each month. We hasten to add, however, that a school may and is encouraged to consider paying daily commuting cost out of local school money when a child is attending KSB or KSD as a day student and the distance is reasonable between the home school district and the appropriate state residential school. An example of where this might be the situation is the one you have presented where the child's home school district is in a county that is contiguous to the county wherein is located the state residential school. Such a practice would parallel the situation contemplated and mandated in subsections (1) and (2) of KRS 157.280. We repeat, however, that paying for daily transportation cost of a child to either KSB or KSD is not required by law and would be entirely within the reasonable discretion of the local board of education.