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Last updated on Tuesday, November 25, 2014
(STATEHOUSE) - The Indiana Supreme Court will issue the final word on whether school systems can legally discontinue bus service.
Indy's Franklin Township Schools abandoned a short-lived attempt in 2011 to make parents pay for bus service after parents sued.
A Marion Superior Court judge ruled the school district would have been within its rights to cut off bus service entirely. But a unanimous Indiana Court of Appeals disagreed, ruling buses are an essential part of modern education, and thus fall under the state constitutional requirement of free and uniform public schools.
Justices peppered both sides with questions during oral arguments centering in large part on the court's 2006 ruling that an attempt by Evansville schools to charge a fee for kindergarten was unconstitutional.
Chief Justice Loretta Rush and Justice Mark Massa questioned whether the parents' reading of that ruling turns every permissible service into a mandatory one. But Rush also challenged the school system's argument that the constitutional requirement doesn't extend to busing, asking how students can have access to public education if they can't get to the school.
As always, there's no indication of when the court will rule.
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