Prelude to Brown
1876: Kansas Case Law
Statute-- District Schools Free to All Resident Children
Kansas Session Laws, 1876, Chapter 122, Article 5, Pages 256-257
[Amended by 1877 Law below]
ARTICLE V.--DISTRICT SCHOOLS.
SECTION 1. In each and every school district shall be taught orthography, reading, writing, English grammar, geography, and arithmetic, and such other branches as may be determined by the district board.
SEC. 2. A school month shall consist of four weeks of five days each of six hours per day.
SEC. 3. The district schools established under the provisions of this act shall at all times be equally free and accessible to all the children resident therein over five and under the age of twenty-one years, subject to such regulations as the district board in each may prescribe.
SEC. 4. Any district board refusing the admission of any children into the common schools shall forfeit to the county the sum of one hundred dollars each for every month so offending, during which such schools are taught; and all moneys forfeited to the common-school fund of the county, under this act, shall be expended by the county superintendent for the education of such children in the school district thus denied equal educational advantages: Provided, That any member of said district board who shall protest against the action of his said board in excluding any children from equal educational advantages shall not be subject to the penalty herein named.
SEC. 5. No pupil infected with any contagious disease shall be allowed to attend any common school or remain in any school room while so infected.
SEC. 6. Whenever there be not public money enough belonging to any school district to support a public school the length of time determined at the annual meeting, or at a special meeting duly called, the district board, to meet said deficiency, may assess a tuition fee upon each scholar attending said school, the assessment to be proportioned to the number of days each pupil has been in actual attendance during the term: Provided, That no tuition fee shall be levied upon the scholars in any of the public schools of this state, in accordance with the provisions of this act, unless the entire amount of one per cent. for teachers' wages, as required by law, be first assessed upon the taxable property of said school district.
1877: Kansas Case Law (amends 1876 Law)
Statute-- District Schools Free to All Resident Children Not Applicable to Cities of the First or Second Class
Kansas Session Laws, 1877, Chapter 170, Pages 224-225
[Amends 1876 Law above]
CHAPTER CLXX.
SCHOOLS--BRANCHES TAUGHT--ADMISSION REFUSED, PENALTY.
AN ACT to amend an act entitled "An act for the regulation and support of common schools," approved March 4th, 1876, being sections 1 and 4 of article 5, chapter 122.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Kansas:
SECTION 1. That section one of article five of chapter one hundred and twenty-two of the laws of eighteen hundred and seventy-six be amended as follows: Section 1. That in each and every school district shall be taught orthography, reading, writing, English grammar, geography and arithmetic, and such other branches as may be determined by the district board: Provided, That the instruction given in the several branches taught shall be in the English language.
SEC. 2. That section four of said article and chapter be and the same is hereby amended as follows: Section 4. The members of any district board willfully violating any of the provisions of this article, or refusing the admission of any children into the common schools, shall forfeit to the county the sum of one hundred dollars each for every month so offending during which such schools are taught; and all moneys forfeited to the common-school fund of the county under this act shall be expended by the county superintendent for the education of such children in the school district thus denied equal educational advantages: Provided, That any member of said board who shall protest against the action of his said board in excluding any children from equal educational advantages, or in violating any of the provisions of this article, shall not be subject to the penalty herein named: And provided further, That the provisions of this act shall not apply to cities of the first or second class.
SEC. 3. That sections one and four of the act to which this is amendatory be and the same are hereby repealed.
SEC. 4. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its publication once in the Commonwealth.
Approved March 3, 1877.
I hereby certify that the foregoing is a true and correct copy of the original enrolled bill now on file in my office, and that the same was published in the Commonwealth March 4, 1877.
THOS. H. CAVANAUGH, Secretary of State.