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COURT OF APPEALS DECISION DATED AND RELEASED AUGUST 6, 1996 |
NOTICE |
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A party may file with the
Supreme Court a petition to review an adverse decision by the Court of
Appeals. See § 808.10 and
Rule 809.62, Stats. |
This opinion is subject to
further editing. If published, the
official version will appear in the bound volume of the Official Reports. |
No. 96-0316-FT
STATE
OF WISCONSIN IN COURT OF
APPEALS
DISTRICT III
KAUKAUNA AREA SCHOOL
DISTRICT,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v.
STATE OF WISCONSIN
DEPARTMENT
OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION,
SCHOOL
DISTRICT BOUNDARY
APPEAL BOARD,
AGNES SCHUMACHER and
LITTLE CHUTE SCHOOL
DISTRICT,
Respondents-Respondents.
APPEAL from an order and
a judgment of the circuit court for Outagamie County: DENNIS C. LUEBKE, Judge. Affirmed.
Before Cane, P.J.,
LaRocque and Myse, JJ.
PER
CURIAM. The Kaukauna Area School District appeals a trial
court order and judgment that upheld a decision of the School District Boundary
Appeal Board.[1] The appeal board approved a transfer of an
unoccupied seventeen acre parcel from the Kaukauna school district to the
Little Chute school district. The
parcel's owners intend to develop the parcel by dividing it into separate
residential lots. The appeal board sanctioned
the redistricting on the ground that the Little Chute schools were
significantly closer to the parcel than the Kaukauna schools. The board accepted the owner's position that
the transfer would benefit future students by shortening their travel times and
by possibly eliminating the need for bussing.
A trial court properly
upholds the board's decision as long as it was not arbitrary and
capricious. City of Beloit v.
State Appeal Bd., 103 Wis.2d 661, 663, 309 N.W.2d 392, 393 (Ct. App.
1981). The Kaukauna district raises
several arguments on appeal: (1) the
board lacked jurisdiction to transfer an unoccupied parcel; (2) the board's
reliance on comparative school distances was arbitrary and capricious; (3) the
board wrongly considered the effect redistricting could have on the transferred
parcel's value; and (4) the board could have had no legitimate basis for
approving this parcel's transfer while having earlier disapproved an adjacent's
parcel's transfer. We reject these
arguments and affirm the trial court's order and judgment.
The appeal board had
jurisdiction to hear the appeal, despite the parcel's lack of student
occupants. The board's jurisdiction is
statutory. See Beloit,
103 Wis.2d 665-66, 309 N.W.2d at 395-96.
It does not require that children currently occupy a parcel. The statute contains no such jurisdictional
restriction. See § 117.15, Stats.
Rather, the board's jurisdiction requires the proper subject matter, a
school district decision on the subject matter, and a timely appeal by one of
the parties under ch. 117. In other
words, the board may hear appeals concerning any parcel within either of the
school districts involved, regardless of whether students currently occupy it. Although § 117.15 requires the board to make
such decisions on students' educational welfare, the board may base its
decisions not only on the educational welfare of a parcel's present students,
but also on that of a parcel's future students.
The board's decision was
not arbitrary and capricious. It rested
on a rational basis. See Beloit,
103 Wis.2d at 667, 309 N.W.2d at 396.
The board approved the redistricting on the basis of comparative school
distances. The Little Chute schools
were significantly closer to the parcel than the Kaukauna schools. One such school was within sight of the
parcel. This was a rational basis for
the board's decision. Reduced student
travel times always supply a relevant basis for redistricting. See § 117.15(1), Stats.
Here, the differences in distances were sufficiently compelling to
permit redistricting. Further, the
board could easily evaluate such matters from the parcel's and respective
schools' locations, regardless of the parcel's current lack of occupants. In sum, the board could reasonably conclude that
the redistricting promoted future students' best educational interests.
The board was also free
to consider the effect the redistricting would have on the value of the
parcel. Although the statutes do not
require the board to consider such a factor, the board retains the freedom to
base its decision on all relevant matters, which the statute describes as
"other appropriate factors." See
§ 117.15, Stats. The board was making a partly legislative
determination and was thereby free to consider any information that it might
consider relevant, see Joint Sch. Dist. No. 2 v. State Appeal
Board, 83 Wis.2d 711, 725-26, 266 N.W.2d 374, 381 (1978), provided the
board considered all information in conjunction with the students' educational
welfare. If property values will likely
rise as a result of reducing future students' travel times, the statutes do not
bar the board from weighing such collateral consequences. The board has the freedom, but not the duty,
to grant redistricting after considering such concerns, provided that it
considers such matters in a nonarbitrary manner. In sum, this is no basis for challenging the board's
decision.
Last, the board had no
obligation to adhere to a decision it made in an earlier proceeding involving
an adjacent parcel. The board's
decision involves a winnowing and sifting of the facts the parties have placed
in the record. See Joint
School Dist., 83 Wis.2d at 720, 266 N.W.2d at 378. Each property owner has the right to make
his own case for redistricting; each case stands on its own merits and its own
facts. The fact that the property owner
in the prior case did not or could not make a satisfactory case for his
parcel's detachment has no bearing on the strength of the case made before the
board this time. As a result, the
board's arguably contradictory decision rejecting an adjacent parcel's transfer
in Vanden Heuvel v. Little Chute Area School Dist., No.
95-1431-FT, slip op. (Wis. Ct. App. Nov. 21, 1995), does not make its current
decision arbitrary, irrational, or unreasonable. Further, if the adjacent parcel's owners believe that the board's
views on the matter's quasi-legislative aspects have now evolved in a new
direction, those owners have the freedom to re-petition the respective school
districts and the board itself for redistricting.
By the Court.—Order
and judgment affirmed.
This opinion will not be
published. See Rule 809.23(1)(b)5, Stats.