Education Law

Gratis: Is Child Support a Payment?

Interesting case out of Pennsylvania (Velazquez v. East Stroudsburg Sch. Dist. - plol link) and I want to point it out because it is a great case of getting the right result ... and getting the right law. I love it when courts do that (and in appellate opinions it doesn't happen as often as you might think). 

Kid's mother and father were screwed up. Dad was in jail. Mom was running around the country. Grandma was left to take care of the kid. Kid got in a little trouble and the school sought to make the problem go away by making him a non-resident of the district. Penn's residency law stated that students whose parents live in the district are entitled to attend school in the district, or any other student who was living with someone that treated them as if they were their child gratis (free of charge). The school accepted the student just fine and didn't care until the student got in a little trouble. Then, after investigation, the school found out grandma had received like $1,900 in child support payments extremely intermittently and told the child he was ineligible to come to school there. Trial court sided with school - but the appellate court reversed (correctly in my opinion). Child support payments are not "payment" for keeping the kid ... they are money for the welfare of the child. The money is for the kid ... not for the grandma. Therefore, the grandma was not "being compensated" for taking care of the kid, thus outside of the gratis provision of the law. On top of that, it was $1,900 over the course of a year ... I am not even sure that qualifies as compensation for keeping a child anyway. The court also chided the school in saying the legislative intent was to prohibit district shopping, not to get rid of discipline problems. 

Anyway, right result. Right law. This case isn't going to change the world and outside of Jose and his grandma, no one is going to remember it in 10 years. But, cases like this are why I love the law and keeps my faith in the court system.    

Full post as published by Edjurist on May 28, 2009 (boomark / email).