Public education has received much attention in Virginia, especially since 1950. On several occasions, for example, the General Assembly has approved million dollar appropriations of state funds for school construction projects. The tremendous influx of youth in the public schools during the decade of the 1950's accentuated the need for more teachers as well as classrooms throughout the state. Hence, rising costs of education have become a key matter at each recent session of the General Assembly. During the last few years, however, the question of integration of white and of Negro students in the public schools of the state has been a paramount education issue. When the United States Supreme Court on May 17, 1954 handed down its decision which in effect outlawed racial segregation in the public schools of the nation, Virginia faced a very serious problem because the State Constitution has required separate public schools for white and for Negro children in the Commonwealth. Governor Thomas B. Stanley soon appointed a commission of thirty-two state legislators, under the chairmanship of State Senator Garland Gray, to advise him concerning a course of action to be taken by the Commonwealth. The commission conducted a study and subsequently transmitted to the Governor its report, known as the Gray Plan. The plan recommended consideration of an amendment to the constitutional provision requiring separate schools and suggested that local communities be enabled through their school boards to assign students to schools for a variety of reasons other than race. Subsequently, a special session of the General Assembly authorized a referendum election on the calling of a constitutional convention. The referendum question was worded as follows: "Should a Constitutional Convention be called with authority to revise Section 141 of the State Constitution so as to permit the General Assembly to appropriate public funds to further the education of Virginia students in non-sectarian private schools as well as in public schools?" A majority of the voters voted in the affirmative at the referendum election held in January 1956. In March 1956 a Constitutional Convention was held in Richmond and these delegates rewrote Section 141; hence it became permissible under the Constitution of the Commonwealth to use public funds for tuition grants for pupils in private non-sectarian schools. Later, at a special session of the General Assembly in September 1956, a pupil placement program was adopted under which the Governor appointed a pupil placement board whose chief function was to handle all student assignments in the state; under the program, parents of all children entering the public schools were required to fill out assignment applications which, in turn, were ultimately processed through the board.