Rouleau v. Williamstown School Board

Rouleau v. Williamstown School Board (2005-208); 179 Vt. 576; 892 A.2d 223

2005 VT 131

[Filed 15-Dec-2005]

                                 ENTRY ORDER

                                 2005 VT 131

                      SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 2005-208

                             DECEMBER TERM, 2005

  Tricia Rouleau and 	               }	APPEALED FROM:
  Kristopher Tremblay                  }
                                       }
       v.	                       }	Orange Superior Court
                                       }	
  Williamstown School Board, 	       }
  Douglas Shiok, Superintendent,       }	DOCKET NO. 115-7-04 Oecv
  Rodney Graham, Alvin Avery,          }
  David Evans, Wayne Emmons, and       }
  Matthew Rouleau	               }	Trial Judge: Amy M. Davenport

             In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

       ¶  1.  Plaintiffs appeal from the trial court's grant of summary
  judgment upholding the Williamstown School Board's disciplinary action
  against plaintiff Kristopher Tremblay.  The disciplinary action arose from
  a May 7, 2004 incident in which two Williamstown Middle School students,
  accompanied by Tremblay, removed pellet guns from Tremblay's house and
  brought them to a field at the school, where one of the students shot
  another student in the leg.  Following a disciplinary hearing, the Board
  prohibited Tremblay from participating in any "co-curricular activities
  and/or school functions through the end of the 2003-2004 school year,"
  warned him that  "[a]ny subsequent incident(s), during the 2004-2005 school
  year through May 21, 2005, that warrant a school suspension will result in
  expulsion for the remainder of the calendar year suspension," and filed a
  report about Tremblay with the Orange County Sheriff's Department. 
  Tremblay and Tricia Rouleau, Tremblay's mother, brought an action in the
  superior court under Vermont Rule of Civil Procedure 75, challenging the
  sufficiency of the evidence supporting the Board's decision.  Both sides
  filed motions for summary judgment, and the court found in favor of the
  Board.  This appeal followed.  We hold that the evidence against Tremblay
  was sufficient to support the Board's decision, and we affirm.

       ¶  2.  We review a trial court's grant of summary judgment using the
  same standard as the trial court.  Hardwick Recycling & Salvage, Inc. v.
  Acadia Ins. Co., 2004 VT 124, ¶ 14, 177 Vt. 421, 869 A.2d 82.  "We will
  affirm summary judgment if there are no genuine issues of material fact and
  the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law."  Id.;
  V.R.C.P. 56(c)(3).  Here, both sides agree that no genuine issue of
  material fact exists, and the only questions for our review are questions
  of law.  Our review of questions of law raised by motions for summary
  judgment is plenary and nondeferential.  Hardwick, 2004 VT 124, ¶ 14.
      
       ¶  3.  Plaintiffs contend the trial court erred in upholding
  Tremblay's punishment because the Board's findings were inconsistent with
  its conclusion that Tremblay violated the district's weapons policy.  The
  policy, adopted pursuant to 16 V.S.A. § 1166(b), prohibits "[p]ossession
  and/or use of any dangerous or deadly weapon or facsimile of any dangerous
  or deadly weapon in any school building on school grounds or property." 
  Williamstown School District Weapons Policy § II (1999) [hereinafter
  Weapons Policy].  The policy also prohibits any action that "in any way
  encourages another student to bring weapons to school," and it subjects
  such actions to the same sanctions as possession and use.  Id. § VI.  These
  sanctions include an automatic one-year expulsion for any violation of the
  policy's provisions, subject to case-by-case modification based on
  mitigating circumstances.  Id. § IV.  According to a letter from the
  school's principal to Rouleau describing the results of Tremblay's hearing
  before the Board, the Board "determined that [Tremblay] was in violation of
  the District's Weapons Policy when he was involved with other students who
  brought a soft pellet gun on school grounds on May 7, 2004."  The letter
  also indicated, however, that the Board found Tremblay "did not bring a gun
  onto school grounds, made an effort to stop the other students, and
  eventually told an adult."  Based on these findings, the Board chose not to
  expel Tremblay.

       ¶  4.  Plaintiffs argue that the findings listed in the principal's
  letter demonstrate that Tremblay did not "aid" or "encourage" the other
  students to bring the pellet guns to school, and that the Board's finding
  that Tremblay was "involved with other students" who violated the weapons
  policy does not merit punishment under the policy.  This argument
  essentially asks us to treat the principal's letter describing the Board's
  decision as if it were an opinion describing the formal findings of a trial
  court.  We do not conduct such a searching review of the decisions of a
  specialized board.  Instead, in reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence
  supporting quasi-judicial decisions under Rule 75, we determine only "
  'whether there is any competent evidence to justify the adjudication.' " 
  Hunt v. Village of Bristol, 159 Vt. 439, 441, 620 A.2d 1266, 1267 (1992)
  (quoting Royalton Coll., Inc. v. State Bd. of Educ., 127 Vt. 436, 448, 251 A.2d 498, 506 (1969)).  Plaintiffs' brief argues that failing to require
  formal findings prevents "any substantial avenue of review short of blind
  deference" to the Board.  This assertion ignores not only the Legislature's
  delegation to school boards of "the power to establish educational
  policies, and to prescribe rules and regulations for the conduct and
  management of their respective schools," see Rutz v. Essex Junction
  Prudential Comm., 142 Vt. 400, 405, 457 A.2d 1368, 1370 (1983) (citing 16
  V.S.A. § 563 and emphasizing that "[s]tudent discipline is an important and
  necessary element of school management"), but also the undesirability of
  exhaustive judicial review of each and every decision of local school
  administrators.  Our review balances competing considerations of fairness
  and deference by ensuring that disciplinary decisions are supported by some
  competent evidence without forcing school boards to observe the formalities
  required of courts.  
     
       ¶  5.  Regardless of the language used by the principal to summarize
  the Board's findings regarding Tremblay's actions, the undisputed facts
  were sufficient to support the Board's decision.  Neither side disputes
  that the school determined that the students who brought the pellet guns to
  school took the guns from a locked box in Tremblay's house, while Tremblay
  was present.  As the trial court noted, these facts alone could have
  supported inferences by the Board "that [Tremblay] was the one who knew
  what was in the box and where the key was located in the house; that he
  therefore enabled the other students to access the guns; and he went to the
  school property with the students who had possession of the guns." 
  According to the principal's letter, the Board took three mitigating
  factors into account:  Tremblay's lack of possession or use of the weapons,
  his efforts to prevent the students from using the weapons, and his
  eventual notification of an adult.  None of these factors, however, is
  necessarily inconsistent with a determination that Tremblay's actions
  violated the district's weapons policy; even if Tremblay later reconsidered
  his decision to allow the other students access to the weapons, the Board
  could have punished him based on that decision alone.  Whether Tremblay was
  "involved" in the presence of the weapons on school grounds, as the
  principal put it, or he "enabled" the other students to bring the weapons
  onto school grounds, as the trial court found, the Board was within its
  discretion in determining that Tremblay's behavior violated the policy's
  prohibition of actions that "cause, encourage, or aid any other student to
  possess, handle, or transmit" weapons at school.  Weapons Policy, § VI. 
  The Board's determination did not become any less valid when the principal
  failed to describe the violation using the precise wording of the policy.

       Affirmed.       


                                       BY THE COURT:



                                       _______________________________________
                                       Paul L. Reiber, Chief Justice

                                       _______________________________________
                                       Denise R. Johnson, Associate Justice
     
                                       _______________________________________
                                       Marilyn S. Skoglund, Associate Justice

                                       _______________________________________
                                       Brian L. Burgess, Associate Justice

                                       _______________________________________
                                       Ernest W. Gibson, Associate Justice 
                                       (Ret.), Specially Assigned