## Facts

- Ohio law required public school districts to be open for a minimum number of instructional days and authorized the state superintendent to waive days lost for specified causes, including “utility failure” rendering a building unfit for use.
- During the 1983–1984 school year, Cleveland’s public schools closed on two winter days because insufficient custodial staff were available to operate boilers, leaving buildings without heat and unsuitable for instruction.
- The closures left the district one day short of the statutory minimum for the scheduled year.
- Cleveland’s board sought a waiver for one day, asserting that adding a day would cost roughly $750,000.
- The state superintendent, acting for the state board, denied the waiver, reasoning that the missed days stemmed from union protest activity and that excusing them would disserve students.
- Cleveland’s board filed an original action in mandamus in the Ohio Supreme Court to compel the waiver.

## Issues

1. Whether a school closure caused by lack of heat because boilers were not operated constitutes a statutory “utility failure” that requires the state superintendent to waive the missed instructional day.
2. Whether mandamus lies to compel the superintendent and state board to grant a waiver when the statutory conditions for waiver are satisfied.

## Decision

- The Ohio Supreme Court granted a writ of mandamus.
- The court ordered the state board and the state superintendent to waive one day of required instruction for the 1983–1984 Cleveland school year.
- The court treated the lack of heat rendering buildings unfit for instruction as a “utility failure” within the waiver statute.
- The court rejected the superintendent’s reliance on the labor-related origins of the shutdown as a basis to deny a waiver otherwise authorized by statute.

## Legal Principles

- Mandamus issues only when the relator shows a clear legal right to relief, a corresponding clear legal duty on the respondent, and no adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law.
- When a statute directs that instructional days be excused upon specified conditions (including a “utility failure” making school buildings unfit for use), the superintendent’s role becomes ministerial once the predicate facts are established.
- In applying the waiver categories, the legally relevant inquiry is whether a qualifying condition made the buildings unusable for instruction; policy objections or the underlying source of the condition cannot negate coverage where the statutory terms are met.

## Conclusion

The Ohio Supreme Court compelled state education officials to excuse a missed day because unheated school buildings were unfit for instruction and therefore fell within the statute’s “utility failure” waiver provision, making the waiver a mandatory duty enforceable by mandamus.


State ex rel. Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. State Bd. of Educ. of Ohio, 11 Ohio St. 3d 89, 464 N.E.2d 137 (Ohio 1984)