Student tuition ruling upheld

The school board will decide whether to pursue the case in the Ohio Supreme Court.

By Denise Dick

BOARDMAN — The aunt and uncle of a Las Vegas native can send their niece to Boardman schools and aren’t responsible for tuition.

The 7th District Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court decision saying that Anthony and Katherine Grosso’s niece could attend the schools. Tuition would be the responsibility of the school district in Las Vegas.

Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court had made the ruling in May 2008.

The appeals court affirmed it last week.

“I’m happy,” Anthony Grosso said. “I can’t believe the long battle that we’ve been through.”

The Grossos, who live in the Boardman school district and have legal custody of the girl, filed court action in September 2007 asking that she be allowed to attend school tuition-free. She came to live with the Grossos in April 2007 because of personal circumstances at her mother’s home in Las Vegas.

“Hopefully, it’s done, but you never know,” Grosso said of the case. “We’ll have to see what they do.”

Superintendent Frank Lazzeri said he doesn’t know whether the school board will opt to appeal the decision to the Ohio Supreme Court.

“I understand that the court felt that it’s more important for the girl to get an education than for the Boardman schools to collect money for tuition,” he said.

The school district didn’t dispute the importance of her getting an education, Lazzeri said. It was an issue of paying tuition. Under state law, the girl is considered a non-resident pupil, he said, so the district cannot collect state aid for her education.

While the court said tuition should be collected from the school district in Las Vegas, that’s not enforceable, the superintendent said.

The district’s attorneys had contended there are only two ways in Ohio that a student may attend public schools tuition-free: when the student lives in the school district with his or her parents; or when the student is being adopted.

The law “indicates that when a child does not reside in the school district where his/her parent resides, the child shall be admitted to the schools of the district where the child resides if the child is in the legal custody of a person other than the child’s parent,” the appeals court ruling says.

“This described situation fits precisely with the situation presented to this court,” it says, adding that nothing in the law indicates that it only applies to students whose parents reside in Ohio.

The appeals court judges also concluded that the girl is a resident of the district.

“Testimony established that she lived, slept and ate at her aunt’s and uncle’s home,” the ruling says.

Grosso said the girl, now 18 and a senior at Boardman High School, is doing well at school, earning mostly A’s and B’s.

“She just got her [driver’s] license in August so that gives her a little bit more freedom,” he said.

denise_dick@vindy.com