Barbara Roberts Et Al. v. Board Directors School District City Scranton

for the children of appellants who are in the seventh and eighth grades and who reside in the Oakmont area of the City of Scranton. These students had been bused to school for the past six or seven years on account of their classification as elementary students; but, because of the opening of the East Scranton Junior High School in the Fall of 1973, approximately sixty students from the Oakmont area were reassigned to the new Junior High School and reclassified as secondary students. The policy of the School Board as announced at a meeting on July 9, 1973, is to provide transportation for resident pupils in grades seven through nine attending elementary or secondary schools if no public transportation is available and the residence of the child is two or more miles from school, or for a lesser distance if a certified hazardous condition exists. The policy was against busing on the basis of hazard alone. Because the two and one-half mile route which the reclassified Oakmont students would have to traverse to and from the new Junior High School was certified as a hazardous traffic area by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and because the lower court felt that the School Board "may" have abused its discretion in choosing not to bus the Oakmont seventh and eighth graders, a decree issued requiring the Board to bus these children conditioned upon the entry of security by the appellants. On appeal to the Commonwealth Court, the decree was vacated on the grounds that the lower court had not found the requisite clear abuse of discretion and that the lower court failed to make a finding as to adequate alternative transportation facilities available to the Oakmont students. The Commonwealth Court remanded for a reconsideration of these deficiencies. Board of Directors of the School District of the City of Scranton v. Roberts, 13 Pa. Commw. 464, 320 A.2d 141 (1974). We granted allocatur and hereby affirm the order of the Commonwealth Court.