Opinion
Argued June 7, 1978
July 5, 1978.
Schools — Transportation of pupils — Public School Code of 1949, Act 1949, March 10, P.L. 30 — Constitutionality — Withholding school subsidy.
1. Provisions of the Public School Code of 1949, Act 1949, March 10, P.L. 30, as interpreted by the Secretary of Education to require school districts to transport students of non-public schools to their schools if located within ten miles of district boundaries, are constitutional, but the Secretary may not order the withholding of a school district subsidy to force compliance with such provisions. [404]
Argued June 7, 1978, before President Judge BOWMAN and Judges CRUMLISH, JR., WILKINSON, JR., MENCER, ROGERS, BLATT and DiSALLE.
Appeal, No. 1610 C.D. 1976, from the Order of the Secretary of Education in case of In the Matter of Administrative Hearings Under Act 372; Pequea Valley School District, No. 1974-2.
Show cause order issued by Department of Education. Hearing held. School district ordered by Secretary of Education to transport pupils. Subsidy ordered withheld. School District appealed to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. Held: Order affirmed in part and vacated in part.
Frank P. Mincarelli, with him Charles B. Grove, Jr., and Blakinger, Grove Chillas, P.C., for petitioner.
Patricia A. Donovan, Deputy Attorney General, for respondent.
William B. Ball, with him Joseph G. Skelly, Philip J. Murren, and Ball Skelly, for intervenors.
Pequea Valley School District, Lancaster County, has filed a Petition for Review of an order of the Secretary of Education requiring it to transport school children in accordance with the Secretary's interpretation of Section 1361 of the Public School Code of 1949. The issues and the facts are, with a minor exception, the same as those presented in School District of Pittsburgh v. Department of Education, 33 Pa. Commw. 535, 382 A.2d 772 (1978), where in a comprehensive opinion we upheld the Secretary's interpretation of the Act and its constitutionality as so interpreted, but set aside the Secretary's order with respect to the district's subsidy as being without statutory authority. We will therefore enter an order essentially the same as the one made in that case.
Act of March 10, 1949, P.L. 30, as amended, 24 P. S. § 13-1361.
Pequea Valley School District urges that we should hold the Act unconstitutional as denying equal protection to children who attend profit-making schools and who as such are not required to be transported by the Act. A complainant has no standing to contest the validity of a law because of its affect on the putative rights of other persons. Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490 (1975); Turco Paint Varnish Co. v. Kalodner, 320 Pa. 421, 184 A. 37 (1936); Commonwealth v. Evans, 156 Pa. Super. 321, 40 A.2d 137 (1945).
And in Springfield School District v. Department of Education, 35 Pa. Commw. 71, 384 A.2d 1049 (1978).
ORDER
AND NOW, this 5th day of July, 1978, paragraph 2 of the Secretary of Education's final order dated September 8, 1976 requiring Pequea Valley School District to "transport all eligible non-public school children beyond the school district boundaries in accordance with the ten mile mandated requirement in Act 372" is affirmed; paragraph 3 thereof is vacated in the entirety, without prejudice to the Secretary's right to take further action with regard to subsidy as provided by law.