STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA
OFFICE OF
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

April 14, 1969

T. F. Martin
State's Attorney, Brookings County
Brookings, South Dakota 57006

OFFICIAL OPINION NO. 69-37

Schools may be kept in session despite fact that weather conditions prohibit the operation of school buses. SDC 1960 Supp. 15.3010

Dear Mr. Martin:

You have requested my official opinion in answer to this question:

"May a school board of an independent school district continue to keep school in session during those days which due to adverse weather conditions, the school buses cannot run so as to pick up and deliver rural children to the schools?"

You are advised that most, if not all, questions heretofore requested of this office have dealt with the practical problem of whether or not the school teacher loses pay during those periods of legal discontinuance of school because of adverse weather. See 1935-36 AGR 189; 1949-50 AGR 59, and 1953-54 AGR 308. However, SDC 1960 Supp. 15.3010 provides that schools shall be legally discontinued "when the school board or the county superintendent closes the school because of inclement weather or contagious disease." SDC 1960 Supp. 15.3009, as last amended by Ch. 83 of the Session Laws of 1963 requires that the schools be operated for at least a nine month term during which the school must be in actual session for a minimum of one hundred seventy-five days.

There is no question that the statutes require a certain number of school days within each school year for the school to be actually in session. There can be no question that the determination of whether or not to legally discontinue school because of inclement weather is, in an independent school district, left solely within the discretion of the school board of such independent school district. While, perhaps such is not necessary, I approve of the statement of my predecessor in his opinion of 1949-50 AGR 59, at page 61 when discussing legal discontinuances for inclement weather when he said:

"It may not be out of place to suggest, however, that the best interests of the public and both teachers and pupils would be served, if arrangements are made to make up the time lost, so that the pupils in your school will not be deprived of the school time which they may require to make their grades in a creditable manner."

It is my opinion that as the legal discontinuance of school is a matter resting solely and exclusively in the school board, that the fact the school buses cannot run, while a factor, is not the decisive factor in determining whether or not to legally discontinue school for reasons of inclement weather. All factors present must be considered, and the school board, in its honest discretion, must make the ultimate decision as to any discontinuance.

Your particular question is answered YES.

Respectfully submitted,

Gordon Mydland
Attorney General