Vermont’s top education official says school districts cannot deny tuition to religious schools

Vermont’s prime schooling official has instructed faculty districts they can not withhold public tuition cash to colleges due to their spiritual affiliation, issuing what seems to be the state’s first public steerage on the topic since a landmark U.S. Supreme Court docket resolution this summer time.

“Requests for tuition funds for resident college students to accepted unbiased spiritual colleges or spiritual unbiased colleges that meet instructional high quality requirements should be handled the identical as requests for tuition funds to secular accepted unbiased colleges or secular unbiased colleges that meet instructional high quality requirements,” Dan French, Vermont’s secretary of schooling, instructed superintendents in a Tuesday letter. 

The brand new steerage comes three months after a U.S. Supreme Court docket resolution in a Maine case, Carson v. Makin, which is anticipated to have a major influence on Vermont’s instructional panorama.

Maine, like Vermont, is simply too rural and sparsely populated to function public colleges in all cities. To make sure each baby has entry to schooling, each states enable college students in some areas to make use of public cash to attend close by non-public colleges.

Each states beforehand positioned restrictions on that public cash going to spiritual colleges. In 2018, a bunch of Maine dad and mom sued over these restrictions, alleging that they have been victims of discrimination as a result of their youngsters couldn’t use public {dollars} to attend Christian colleges. 

In a 6-3 resolution June 21, the Supreme Court docket sided with the dad and mom, ruling that the Maine program amounted to unconstitutional discrimination. 

That call is anticipated to have broad implications for Vermont’s system, the place some dad and mom have additionally sought public {dollars} to ship their youngsters to spiritual colleges. 

However Vermont’s structure presents a novel wrinkle. A provision often called the “compelled help clause” prohibits Vermonters from being pressured to help a faith that they don’t observe, or one that’s “opposite to the dictates of conscience.”

The Supreme Court docket’s resolution has raised questions on whether or not the usage of faculty district funds — taxpayer cash — for tuition at spiritual colleges might violate that clause.

In Tuesday’s letter, French explicitly stated that public faculty districts couldn’t withhold tuition funding to spiritual colleges primarily based on the compelled help clause.

However Peter Teachout, a constitutional legislation professor at Vermont Legislation Faculty, questioned that steerage. 

“I don’t know who’s liable for offering the (Company of Training) with authorized and constitutional recommendation, however I believe that advising native faculty districts to violate a key provision within the Vermont structure with out a minimum of exploring whether or not that’s required by the Supreme Court docket resolution within the Carson case, and with out exploring choices obtainable for complying with each that call and with the Vermont structure, is deeply problematical,” Teachout stated in an e-mail to VTDigger. 

Noting that Maine’s structure had no compelled help clause, Teachout floated the potential for a short lived maintain on all public tuition funds to non-public colleges till state lawmakers devise an answer. Vermont lawmakers tried and failed to deal with the difficulty within the legislative session earlier this yr, and count on to return to it within the coming session. 

“The higher, the extra accountable, recommendation beneath the circumstances would have been to instruct native faculty districts to limit tuition reimbursement funds to public colleges in different districts till the state legislature has had time to behave,” Teachout stated. 

Tuesday’s letter doesn’t appear to signify a major shift in the established order: Vermont faculty districts have already been paying tuition for college students to attend non-public spiritual colleges.

Throughout the 2020-21 faculty yr, 14 Vermont college students acquired roughly $150,000 in public cash for tuition at spiritual colleges, in response to information supplied by the Vermont Impartial Colleges Affiliation.