Karen Strehlke v. Grosse Pointe Pub. Sch. Sys.

654 F. App'x 713
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedJune 29, 2016
Docket14-2352
StatusUnpublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 654 F. App'x 713 (Karen Strehlke v. Grosse Pointe Pub. Sch. Sys.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Karen Strehlke v. Grosse Pointe Pub. Sch. Sys., 654 F. App'x 713 (6th Cir. 2016).

Opinions

HELENE N. WHITE, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs, six parents as next friends on behalf of their minor children,1 brought this civil rights action against Defendants Grosse Pointe Public School System Board of Education (Board), Board President Judy Gafa, Superintendent Dr. Thomas Hardwood, and Deputy Superintendent Dr. M. Jon Dean (collectively, GPPSS),2 alleging GPPSS’s high-school attendance-zone policy, which establishes attendance [715]*715areas for GPPSS’s two high schools— Grosse Pointe North High School and Grosse Pointe South High School—violates their children’s rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and analogous provisions of the Michigan Constitution. Plaintiffs, who reside in the northwest corner of the City of Grosse Pointe Farms, allege that by placing their children in the Grosse Pointe North High School attendance area, rather than Grosse Pointe South’s with all other children who live in Grosse Pointe Farms, GPPSS’s attendance-zone policy deprives their children of the equal protection of the laws, freedom of association, and the privileges and immunities of U.S. citizenship. The district court entered summary judgment for GPPSS. We AFFIRM.

I.

A.

GPPSS operates two high schools that serve six municipalities in eastern Wayne County, Michigan: Grosse Pointe, Grosse Pointe Farms (the Farms), Grosse Pointe Park, Grosse Pointe Woods, and parts of Grosse Pointe Shores and Harper Woods. Grosse Pointe North High School (North) is located in Grosse Pointe Woods; its attendance zone includes Grosse Pointe, Woods, GPPSS’s portion of Grosse Pointe Shores and Harper Woods, and the area of the Farms north of Moross Road and west of Chalfonte Avenue—i.e., the northwest corner of-the Farms. The Farms is home to Grosse Pointe South High School (South). Children residing in Grosse Pointe, Grosse Pointe Park, and all but the northwest corner of the Farms are within South’s attendance area. Plaintiffs reside in the northwest corner of the Farms and thus North’s attendance area.

In their complaint, Plaintiffs allege that the entirety of the Farms is within South’s attendance area, but “in recent years,” the Board revised its attendance-area policy “to exclude” children residing in the northwest corner of the Farms from attending South. (Compl. ¶¶ 15-16, 19, PID 69-70.) Since the Board revised the policy, GPPSS has required students in the northwest corner of the Farms to apply to enroll at South.

According to GPPSS’s records, however, shortly before GPPSS opened North in 1968, the Board enacted a policy establishing a “boundary line” between the two high schools that coincided with GPPSS’s “existing boundary line between Kerby, Monteith and Barnes elementary schools,” placing “five elementary school attendance areas” in each high school’s attendance area: Barnes, Ferry, Mason, Monteith, and Poupard in the North area and Defer, Kerby, Maire, Richard, and Trombly in the South area. (Fenton Aff. ¶¶ 6, 8-10, PID 270-71; Board Minutes from Dec. 11,1967, PID 275-76; January 1968 Map, PID 278.) Although Barnes Elementary School closed in 1984, the 1967 high-school boundary line remains in place today. Students who would have attended Barnes attend Ferry and Monteith Elementary Schools, which are both, like Barnes, in North’s attendance zone. Children in the disputed area attend Monteith Elementary School in Grosse Pointe Woods, Brownell Middle School in the Farms, and Grosse Pointe North High School. The parties acknowledged at oral argument that GPPSS included the northwest corner of the Farms in Monteith’s attendance zone, rather than Kerby’s (which is in the Farms), thereby splitting the Farms, because the Board did not want elementary-school children in the northwest corner of the Farms to have to cross the intersection at Moross Road and Chalfonte Avenue.

The 1967 policy, in effect, draws a line west from Lake St. Clair along the north[716]*716ern border of the Farms to Chalfonte Avenue, then south along Chalfonte Avenue to Moross Road, and then west along Moross Road to Mack Avenue, and continuing through Grosse Pointe Woods to GPPSS’s western border. As a result, residents in the northwest corner of the Farms are included in North’s attendance area, while the remainder of the Farms is in South’s attendance zone.

In addition to the 1967 attendance-area policy, the Board approved an intra-dis-trict transfer policy in 1996, prospectively limiting transfers between the attendance areas. The 1996 policy provides that “transfers will be granted if class size, staffing, student groupings, or total enrollment in a particular building are not adversely affected.” (Policy, PID 490.) Specifically with regard to the high schools, the Board expressed a “desire ... to limit the high school enrollment,” and prospectively limited transfers between the high schools if a school’s “total population 9-12 (excluding special education) is greater than 1,500 and/or [if there is] more than a difference of 300” in the enrollment numbers of the schools. (Policy, PID 491.) Limits on inter-high-school transfers under the policy went into effect in school year 1999-2000, when South’s enrollment passed the 1500-student threshold. Since then, GPPSS officials permit students residing in the North attendance area, including Plaintiffs’ children, to enroll in South “only for cause.” (Fenton Supp. Aff. ¶ 5, PID 484; see also PID 280.) The Board revised the 1996 transfer policy in 2008. The 2008 policy no longer limits transfers based on the number of students enrolled or differentials in enrollment numbers. Rather, the 2008 policy allows transfers “if class size, staffing, student groupings, or total enrollment in a particular building are not adversely affected.” (Policy 5111, PID 285.) GPPSS’s Administrative Guideline 5111, which accompanies the 2008 policy and establishes various procedures under the policy, states that “generally in-district transfers or a change of an original assignment to a school may be approved if, in the judgement [sic] of the principals of the transferring and receiving schools and central office administration, staffing levels (including current school year and subsequent school years), and student groupings are not adversely affected.” (Fenton Aff. ¶ 13, PID 272; Admin. Guideline 5111, PID 287.)

B.

After unsuccessfully petitioning the Board to allow all Farms children to enroll in South, Plaintiffs filed this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the attendance-area policy is irrational and that GPPSS does not provide Plaintiffs’ children with educational opportunities on equal terms with other Farms children, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Article I, § 2 of the Michigan Constitution. Plaintiffs further allege that GPPSS, by enforcing its attendance-zone policy, deprives their children of the privileges and immunities of U.S. citizenship and unconstitutionally interferes with their children’s ability to form intimate associations with other Farms students. Plaintiffs requested declaratory relief and an injunction against enforcement of GPPSS’s attendance-area policy to the extent it precludes children in the northwest corner of the Farms from attending South.

GPPSS filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), and alternatively, for summary judgment pursuant to Rule 56.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
654 F. App'x 713, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/karen-strehlke-v-grosse-pointe-pub-sch-sys-ca6-2016.