The murky future for illegal immigrant K-12 students in Tennessee got a little clearer Wednesday.
An amendment to the bill by Sen. Bo Watson, R-Hixson, that would have authorized school districts to refuse to enroll illegal immigrant students now says if a student is unable to provide documentation establishing U.S. citizenship, pending citizenship, or legal immigration or visa status, a school district can enroll the student without charge.
In other words, school districts, if they choose, can treat undocumented students just as they have in the past, which is that they are constitutionally required to educate them.
However, the amended bill also gives school districts a monetization option. If the student is unable to provide the paperwork as noted above, the district can enroll them and charge them tuition that would be no less than the base funding amount for the respective school year, as determined by the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) funding formula.
That part, as senators surely intend, will draw a lawsuit as a violation of the 1982 United States Supreme Court’s Plyer v. Doe decision, which held that children are entitled to a free public education regardless of their immigration status.