1961 US Commission on Civil Rights Report Book 2 - University of ...

school teachers, 59 transferred to the private school retaining their retirement
privileges under State law. During the 1959-60 school year
the Prince Edward Foundation's expenses were met exclusively with
voluntary contributions. 103 (Elimination of all educational expenditures
by the county brought about a reduction in real estate tax rate
from $3.30 to $1.50 which helped make contributions possible.) During
the following school year the county made tuition grants available
104 and, under the authority of a new Virginia law, authorized a
credit against real estate and personal property taxes for contributions
made to the school. 105 The county also provides reimbursement up to
$35 per year for transportation of each child living over one-half mile
from the school to the parents of children attending the school. 106 In
order to provide funds for the county's share of tuition grants, the
board of supervisors raised the tax rate for fiscal <strong>1961</strong> to $3.90, an increase
of 60 cents over fiscal 1959, the last year that public schools were
open. 107
During the 1960-61 school year a total of 1,325 tuition grants was
approved by the school board—all for children attending the foundation's
schools. 108 These grants were $225 for elementary and $250 for
high school pupils, compared with tuition charges of $240 and $265,
hence parents paid only $15 a child per year. 109 The excess of tuition
charges over grants was $32,265, or some $24,600 less than the total
contributions to the foundation of $56,866.22. Altogether, 96 percent
of the pupils enrolled in the foundation's schools received tuition grants
the total amount of which represented 91 percent of the foundation's
revenue. 110 This governmental support, though indirect, is extensive.
There is no apparent State control of the foundation, but it must be
noted that under State law a private school must be approved by the
State board of education and conform academically to its rules and
regulations if its students are to qualify for grants. 111 In addition, the
participation by teachers in such schools in the State retirement system
requires the adoption of a resolution by the school's governing body and
the approval of that resolution by the board of trustees of the Virginia
supplemental retirement system. 118
CONSTITUTIONALITY OF TUITION GRANTS
As was pointed out above, the tuition grant system was one of the devices
aimed at removing the State from the business of providing education
sufficiently to avoid the requirements of the i4th amendment. Yet, as
shown by its operation in Prince Edward County, State and local funds