Judgment Parental subsidy also for visit of Kitas free bearer

VGH Mannheim: Parents grant also for visit of Kitas free carrier
(Jur). If parents from the community receive a voluntary grant for the visit of their children in a kindergarten, this may not only apply to municipal day-care centers. If the attendance of kindergartens of free-lancers is not promoted, this will violate the principle of equality, the Verwaltungsgerichtshof (VGH) Baden-Württemberg in Mannheim ruled in a ruling announced on Monday, March 14, 2016 (Ref .: 12 S 638/15 ). However, with regard to the amount of support, the municipality may take into account differences in care provision, according to the VGH in its judgment of 23 February 2016.

Image: Oksana Kuzmina - fotolia

A couple of parents from Künzelsau had sued, which sent their two children to a Waldorf kindergarten in 2008. The city grants since 2007 Künzelsauer parents a significant contribution reduction, if the children are sent to a municipal kindergarten. From the age of 3 then fall no more Kita contributions.

The wailing parents also wanted to benefit from this and demanded that the city reimburse Kita contributions amounting to 11,621 euros. So much had they spent for the visit of their children in the Waldorf kindergarten.

The Verwaltungsgericht Stuttgart dismissed the claim of the parents for reimbursement of the contributions paid. However, the court obliged the municipality to decide once more on the application for a subsidy for equal treatment reasons.

The city of Künzelsau, however, still wanted to pay only voluntary subsidies for visits to municipal kindergartens and therefore appealed against the verdict to the VGH.

But even the Mannheim judges tipped the funding practice of the municipality. With the direct promotion of the visit of an urban day-care center alone, the legal right of choice of the parents and their right of education are undermined. It is against the principle of equality in the Basic Law that parents who send their children to a kindergarten of a free institution are excluded from voluntary support.

Although the municipality supports the Künzelsauer Waldorf Kindergarten itself also with voluntary subsidies. However, in contrast to the support of an urban day-care center visit, these do not have the purpose of providing preschool children with a regular three-year free kindergarten visit. Rather, they served the general financing of private kindergartens.

The city must therefore decide anew on the application for funding of the complaining parents. However, the support between the kindergartens of the individual institutions need not be the same. The level of funding should take account of differences in care offers. (FLE)