Oct 25, 2018 3 min read

Trinity Area officials are suing Bentworth School District over tuition the neighboring district allegedly underpaid for one of Bentworth’s students who attended Trinity’s agriculture program last year.

Trinity’s civil complaint, which was filed Oct. 18 in Washington County Court of Common Pleas, is the second of its kind Trinity has brought in a bid to get more tuition from outside districts whose students opted to attend the vocational-agricultural program.

Trinity claimed in its complaint – which was prepared by attorneys from the firm Peacock Keller – that Trinity issued an invoice for full-time tuition of $12,331 for the Bentworth student who attended the program during the 2017-18 school year. Bentworth paid $3,089. Trinity is asking for a judgment for the remainder of the sum on the invoice, plus attorney fees and other costs of litigation.

State law allows students whose own schools don’t offer that type of program to attend one that does. Trinity’s program was first approved by the state Department of Education for the 2016-17 school year.

“We don’t dispute that the students have a right to go,” said Bentworth Superintendent Scott Martin, who said he hasn’t yet been served with the case. “Our dispute is the calculation.”

Even though agriculture students go to Trinity Area High School for the whole day, Martin said “they’re really only taking two classes that are different” from the ones offered at Bentworth. So, he added, there’s “no reason” those students can’t attend the special classes and then return to their home district.

For example, he said some special-education students already travel outside the district for required services but otherwise go to classes in Bentworth schools.

The allegations in Trinity’s complaint are similar to those in a case brought by Trinity in Greene County Court of Common Pleas against Jefferson-Morgan School District, which has countered by accusing Trinity of using the agriculture classes as a recruiting tool for its sports teams.

Trinity is seeking roughly $18,500 it claims Jefferson-Morgan still owes in unpaid full-time tuition for the two girls who were enrolled in the program last year.

Jefferson Morgan contends the girls each play at least one sport, and wouldn’t be able to do so if they were attending Trinity part-time.

“That (Trinity) would admit the students in question only as ‘full-time transfer students’ was the result and in furtherance of its practice of recruiting student athletes from other districts and attempting to increase its revenue at the expense of other school districts,” Jefferson-Morgan solicitor Ernie DeHaas wrote in a response to Trinity’s suit.

Trinity Superintendent Michael Lucas did not return a call Wednesday seeking comment.