In re Sundry Citizens

Citations

• 179 Pa. 60
• 36 A. 151
• 1897 Pa. LEXIS 602

Syllabus

<p>School laws — Removal of school directors — Act of June 6, 1893 — Notice of appointment of inspector.</p> <p>The intent of the act of June 6, 1893, P. L. .330, is to confer on the courts of common pleas a power, through the appointment of an inspector, to ascertain the facts and determine whether school directors have exercised a sound discretion in providing suitable accommodations for all the school children of the district.</p> <p>Under the act of June 6,1893, school directors are not entitled to notice of the time and place of an application for the appointment of an inspect- or. All that the law requires is that they shall have notice of the investigation.</p> <p>It is no ground for reversing an order of the court of common pleas removing school directors, that the inspector appointed under the act of June 6, 1893, P. L. 330, was an attorney at law.</p> <p>An inspector appointed under the act of June 6, 1893, P. L. 330, reported that a schoolhouse was small and in suóh a dilapidated condition as to be unsafe; that twenty-seven school children lived from two to two and one half miles from the schoolhouse, and that the surface of the country was such, high hills intervening between them and the schoolhouse, that it was practically inaccessible during the greater part of the school term; that there were nineteen children living within reasonable distance of the school, and these were all the room would hold; that the board had frequently been importuned to provide suitable accommodations, but had í-efused, and no valid cause for the neglect was shown; that the school tax levied was only five mills on the assessed valuation of the district. Held, that an order removing the directors was proper.</p> <p>Under the act of June 6, 1893, P. L. 330, the Supreme Court will not, except in an extreme case, reverse an order of the court of common pleas removing or refusing to remove school directors.</p>