Section 29-4 Requires No Bus-Route Modification for Nonpublic Students: Transportation Limited to Existing Regular Routes

A. Precedents Cited

1) Standards of review and statutory interpretation framework

• Jones v. Municipal Employees' Annuity & Benefit Fund of Chicago, 2016 IL 119618: Cited for the principle that cross-motions for summary judgment generally reflect agreement there is no genuine issue of material fact and the case can be decided as a matter of law.
• Iwan Ries & Co. v. City of Chicago, 2019 IL 124469: Cited for de novo review where the case involves summary judgment and statutory construction.
• Oswald v. Hamer, 2018 IL 122203: Cited for the primacy of statutory text’s plain meaning as the best indicator of legislative intent.
• Murphy-Hylton v. Lieberman Management Services, Inc., 2016 IL 120394: Cited to emphasize reading the statute as a whole and construing words in context with related provisions.
• Chicago Teachers Union, Local No. 1 v. Board of Education of Chicago, 2012 IL 112566: Cited for considering the statute’s purpose, the problem addressed, and consequences of competing interpretations.

2) Substantive transportation and “regular route” authority

• Board of Education, School District No. 142 v. Bakalis, 54 Ill. 2d 448 (1973): The majority relied on Bakalis primarily for the proposition that section 29-4 was enacted for the secular purpose of protecting the health and safety of children traveling to and from nonpublic schools. But the majority also quoted Bakalis for the characterization that section 29-4 “requires a school board to provide the same transportation along its regular school bus routes for nonpublic school pupils as it provides for its public school pupils,” using that framing to reinforce the centrality of “regular route” limitations. The dissent, by contrast, treated Bakalis as affirmatively recognizing transportation “to” nonpublic schools and argued the majority’s reading effectively undercuts Bakalis and the long-standing program it upheld.
• C.E. v. Board of Education of East St. Louis District No. 189, 2012 IL App (5th) 110390: Used by the majority as an analogy: just as section 29-4 does not require transportation to nonpublic students on days public schools are not in session, it likewise does not require districts to “go out of [its] way” to modify routes to accommodate nonpublic students.

3) “Do not add words” / different language implies different meaning

• Cassidy v. China Vitamins, LLC, 2018 IL 122873: Cited for the principle that courts may not add requirements or limitations the legislature did not express. This supported the majority’s rejection of an implied duty to modify routes.
• Illinois State Treasurer v. Illinois Workers' Compensation Comm'n, 2015 IL 117418 and Evans v. Cook County State's Attorney, 2021 IL 125513: Cited for the canon that when the legislature uses different language in different parts of a statute, courts presume different meanings were intended. This was central to the majority’s refusal to import the “on the same basis” clause (which appears in the under-1½-mile portion of section 29-4) into the over-1½-mile portion applicable to plaintiffs.

4) Policy deference and “wisdom” of legislation

• People v. Shephard, 152 Ill. 2d 489 (1992): Cited to underscore that courts interpret statutes; they do not decide whether the statute is wise or the best way to achieve legislative goals. The majority used this to acknowledge potential practical gaps while refusing to expand the statute’s obligations.

5) Dissent’s interpretive and constitutional authorities

While not adopted by the majority, the dissent relied on a set of interpretive and constitutional-avoidance authorities to argue that the majority’s construction is untenable:

• People v. Hanna, 207 Ill. 2d 486 (2003) (quoting Krzalic v. Republic Title Co., 314 F.3d 875 (7th Cir. 2002)): A court should not attribute absurd results to the legislature.
• Pliakos v. Illinois Liquor Control Comm'n, 11 Ill. 2d 456 (1957) and Matsuda v. Cook County Employees' & Officers' Annuity & Benefit Fund, 178 Ill. 2d 360 (1997): Statutes are presumed effective; interpretations rendering them “inoperative” or “nugatory” should be avoided.
• People v. Reed, 2025 IL 130595: Every word should be given effect; none should be rendered superfluous—invoked in the dissent’s defense of giving “extend” independent meaning.
• Bayer v. Panduit Corp., 2016 IL 119553: Statutes should be read as a whole within the broader framework—used by the dissent to integrate related School Code provisions.
• In re Marriage of Lappe, 176 Ill. 2d 414 (1997): Cited for a statement that Bakalis held section 29-4 “required school boards to provide free transportation to school to nonpublic school students.”
• Rainey v. Retirement Board of the Policemen's Annuity & Benefit Fund of Chicago, 2025 IL 131305: Reiterates legislative-intent primacy.
• Carson v. Makin, 596 U.S. 767 (2022), Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing, 330 U.S. 1 (1947), and People v. Orth, 124 Ill. 2d 326 (1988): Used to warn that unequal access to public benefits based on religious schooling choices can trigger free-exercise concerns and that courts should avoid interpretations raising constitutional questions where possible.

B. Legal Reasoning

1) The majority’s textual anchor: “regular route” defines the endpoints

The Court treated the phrase “regular route” as the “strongest indicator of legislative intent.” Section 29-4 defines transportation for qualifying nonpublic students as extending “from some point on the regular route nearest or most easily accessible to their homes” and “to or from a point on such regular route which is nearest or most easily accessible to the school attended.” The majority read these as two regular-route-based reference points: the home-side point and the school-side point, both located on existing routes.

Critically, the majority emphasized what the statute does not say: it does not require pickup/drop-off at the home or at the school in general, but only at points “on the regular route.” That drafting choice, in the majority’s view, forecloses an implied mandate to alter routes.

2) “Extend” means “make available,” not “lengthen the route”

The appellate court relied on a dictionary definition of “extend” meaning to “cause (something) to be longer, wider, or cover more area,” and concluded that districts must lengthen routes to accommodate nonpublic students. The Supreme Court rejected that, reasoning there is nothing in section 29-4 requiring route modification; importing such a duty would add obligations not expressed. The Court instead adopted a Merriam-Webster definition: “extend” in context means “to make available.”

3) The meaning of “or” and the direction-of-travel reading

Plaintiffs argued the statute’s “or” created two options: transport directly “to and from the school attended,” or at least to a regular-route point nearest the school. The Court read the “or” differently—distinguishing the direction of travel (home-to-school versus school-to-home) and pairing the correct regular-route endpoints for each direction. Under this reading, both directions still begin and end at regular-route points nearest/most accessible to home and school.

4) Rejecting “on the same basis” as inapplicable to these plaintiffs

The Court refused to rely on the “on the same basis” language because it appears in the subsection addressing nonpublic students living within 1½ miles, which did not apply here. The Court treated the legislature’s choice to use different language in different distance categories as intentional, and it declined to import parity-based routing concepts into the over-1½-mile regime.

5) Discretion preserved; mandate rejected

The majority stressed that districts may choose to modify routes or run separate regular bus routes for nonpublic students where safer, more economical, and more efficient, and that administrative reimbursement provisions may be available. But those provisions were framed as permissive tools, not commands.

6) The dissent’s core critique: statutory purpose, operability, and coherence

The dissent argued the majority’s reading creates an internally contradictory scheme: a safety statute that does not reliably bring children to their schools. It also asserted the majority’s “extend = make available” approach strips “extend” of independent meaning and renders parts of the statute ineffective in practice. The dissent further maintained that Bakalis and later descriptions like In re Marriage of Lappe reflect a settled understanding that the statute provides transportation “to school,” and that altering that understanding threatens both legislative intent and potential constitutional neutrality principles.

C. Impact

• Operational baseline for districts: Districts remain obligated to provide free transportation to eligible nonpublic students only between the two points on existing “regular routes” nearest/most accessible to home and school, rather than redesigning routes to reach nonpublic schools directly.
• Litigation focus shifts to “nearest or most easily accessible”: Future disputes are likely to concentrate on what qualifies as the “point on the regular route” that is “nearest or most easily accessible” to the school attended (and to the home), rather than route-modification claims.
• Policy pressure on the legislature: The dissent’s operability critique—and its claim that the decision effectively undermines a long-used program—may prompt legislative clarification if the practical result is significant gaps in nonpublic-school access.
• Constitutional-avoidance arguments may reappear: Although the majority did not embrace the dissent’s free-exercise concerns, the dissent’s reliance on Carson v. Makin signals that parties may test whether the ruling creates unequal access to a generally available public benefit. Even if such challenges face hurdles, the decision changes the terrain by narrowing what “afford transportation” means in practice.
• Administrative and funding considerations remain discretionary: The Court’s acknowledgment of discretionary separate routes and possible reimbursement may become the basis for advocacy in school-board proceedings rather than courtroom mandates.