You asked if legislation had been proposed previously to relieve local boards of education of paying for tutoring expelled students. You also wanted to know if there are any pitfalls in proposing such legislation.

The Office of Legislative Research is not authorized to issue legal opinions and the following should not be considered one.

PROPOSED LEGISLATION

Several bills have been proposed in recent years to eliminate the requirement that local boards of education provide alternative educational opportunities for expelled students. These proposals have ranged from charging parents for the alternative education the statutes require local boards to provide for expelled students to removing the statutory requirement entirely. Most districts comply with the alternative education requirement by offering tutoring for students at the school board's expense. Of at least eight bills and one constitutional amendment proposed on this topic since 1995, only two have received a public hearing, and none was voted out of committee.

POTENTIAL LEGISLATIVE OBSTACLES

Connecticut's constitution grants a fundamental right to education and imposes a state obligation to implement and maintain that right (Conn. Const. art. VIII, § 1). The statutes require local and regional boards of education to offer expelled students under age 16 an alternative educational opportunity during the expulsion period. Expelled students may receive tutoring or, with permission from a neighboring district, enroll in school there. School boards must also provide alternative opportunities for students between the ages of 16 and 18 who are expelled for the first time and want to continue their education and may place them in adult education programs in addition to the other options.

Because the statutes require districts to provide these alternative educational opportunities to expelled students, it seems unlikely that they can charge parents for the cost of providing them. Furthermore, a parent's inability or failure to pay for such services would deprive the student of his constitutional right to education, the burden of which falls on the state for implementation. If local education agencies did not provide and pay for alternative educational opportunities, the state would probably have to find another way to deliver these services to expelled students.

JG: ro