Background
E.W. and A.M. are elementary students attending Bowman Catholic Elementary School, a nonpublic school in East St. Louis. Both children live more than one and a half miles from the school and reside along a highway that forms part of the East St. Louis School District No. 189’s regular public bus routes. Until August 2022, the District had provided bus service to Bowman students, but it discontinued service that month, citing a driver shortage. The children’s parents filed suit for declaratory and injunctive relief, arguing the District’s refusal violated section 29-4 of the Illinois School Code, which requires any school district that operates buses for public school students to also provide free transportation to qualifying nonpublic school students.
The central dispute was what section 29-4 actually obligates a district to do. The parents argued the statute required the District to either transport the children directly to Bowman or modify an existing route to do so. The District maintained its obligation was limited to offering pickup and drop-off at points along its already-existing regular routes — meaning it had no duty to detour buses to reach the nonpublic school itself. The circuit court of St. Clair County granted summary judgment for the District. The Fifth District Appellate Court reversed, reading section 29-4 to require that nonpublic students be treated identically to public school students, which it said mandated route modifications. The Illinois Supreme Court granted the District’s petition for leave to appeal.
The Court’s Holding
A four-justice majority, in an opinion by Justice O’Brien, reversed the appellate court and affirmed the circuit court’s summary judgment for the District. The court held that section 29-4 limits a school district’s obligation to providing pickup and drop-off at points along its existing regular bus routes — the points nearest or most easily accessible to the nonpublic student’s home and to the nonpublic school. The statute does not require the District to modify those routes, extend them to reach the nonpublic school, or create separate routes for nonpublic students.
The majority’s statutory analysis turned on the phrase “regular route.” Section 29-4 defines the scope of required transportation as running “from some point on the regular route nearest or most easily accessible to their homes to and from the school attended, or to or from a point on such regular route which is nearest or most easily accessible to the school attended.” The court emphasized that the legislature anchored both the home-side and school-side pickup and drop-off locations to points on the existing “regular route,” not to the nearest point to the home or school in general. This language, the majority concluded, evidences a clear legislative intent that districts need not go out of their way to reach the nonpublic school. The court also rejected the appellate court’s reading of “extend” to mean expanding or lengthening a route, holding instead that “extend” in this context means simply “to make available.” Finally, the majority noted that the statute’s “on the same basis” equality language appears only in the separate provision governing students who live within one and a half miles of school — a provision not at issue here — and that the legislature’s use of different language in the two provisions signals different intended results.
Justice Cunningham dissented, joined by Justices Overstreet and Rochford, arguing that the majority’s construction renders section 29-4 inoperative. The dissent contended that no parent would place an elementary-age child on a bus that drops them off at some point along a public bus route that may be miles from the nonpublic school, with no safe means to complete the journey. In the dissent’s view, the phrase “to and from the school attended” is an express directive to transport children to their actual school, and “regular route” merely means door-to-door pickup is not required. The dissent further noted the program has existed since 1933 and served 8,355 nonpublic students in the 2024–25 school year, warning that the majority’s ruling effectively repeals it.
Key Takeaways
- Under section 29-4 of the Illinois School Code, a school district’s transportation obligation to nonpublic school students living more than one and a half miles from their school is limited to pickup and drop-off at points on the district’s existing regular bus routes — the points nearest or most easily accessible to the student’s home and to the nonpublic school.
- Districts are not required to modify, extend, or create separate bus routes to transport nonpublic students directly to their school; however, they retain discretion to do so when a separate route would be safer, more economical, and more efficient.
- The equality mandate of “on the same basis” in section 29-4 applies only to the provision governing students residing within one and a half miles of their school, not to the over-one-and-a-half-mile provision, and cannot be imported into the latter by implication.
- In a 4-3 decision, the court acknowledged that its holding may leave some nonpublic school families without a practical means of transportation when the nearest point on a regular route is far from their school, but concluded that any expansion of the statutory obligation is a matter for the legislature, not the courts.
Why It Matters
This decision settles a long-contested question about the scope of Illinois school districts’ transportation obligations to nonpublic school students under section 29-4, resolving a conflict between the circuit court and appellate court. For school districts across Illinois, the ruling confirms they need not alter existing bus infrastructure or bear the operational costs of routing buses to nonpublic schools. Districts may provide such service voluntarily and may seek state reimbursement for doing so, but they face no legal mandate to do so under current law.
For families of nonpublic school students — particularly in lower-income communities where private transportation is not a realistic option — the practical consequence may be significant. As the dissent warned, a drop-off point on a public bus route that is geographically close to a nonpublic school in the statutory sense may still leave children a considerable and potentially unsafe distance from their school’s door. Advocates and affected families may look to the Illinois General Assembly to amend section 29-4 if they seek broader transportation access for nonpublic school students.