Bid to end state control of LR’s schools blocked
Court wants to weigh lawsuit
The Arkansas Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked an effort to end state control of the Little Rock School District, ordering lower-court proceedings halted until justices can decide whether a lawsuit aimed at returning local control of the school system can move forward.
The lawsuit had gotten the green light to go ahead in August from Pulaski County Circuit Judge Mary McGowan. She rejected arguments that the defendants, the state Board of Education and Education Commissioner Johnny Key, should be shielded from litigation by the state’s sovereign immunity.
The judge found the plaintiffs — a partnership of parents and educators — were entitled to a trial. McGowan ruled they had overcome sovereign-immunity protections by presenting sufficient evidence to show that Key and the board had exceeded their authority to exert control of the district.
The next step in the litigation was for McGowan to decide whether a receiver should be appointed to manage Little Rock schools until the lawsuit could go to trial. The hearing had been set for Friday even as state attorneys appealed McGowan’s immunity ruling to the Supreme Court.
The high court intervened Wednesday to block that hearing, acting at the urging of state lawyers who argued that McGowan lost jurisdiction over the litigation once appeal proceedings began.
Lawyers for the parent-teacher group had called on the high court to allow McGowan to go ahead and decide the receivership question, a decision the state would also appeal. Justices could then resolve both appeals simultaneously, which would reduce the amount of time devoted to resolving the litigation.
The state took over the district in January 2015, citing chronically low test scores in six academically distressed schools — Baseline Elementary, Cloverdale Aerospace Technology Center, Henderson Middle, and Hall, J.A. Fair and McClellan high schools — out of the district’s 48 schools. The elected School Board was replaced by Key.
In December, the Board of Education unanimously approved returning supervisory authority of the 23,000-student system to a locally elected school board but with conditions: As long as the district is classified as needing Level 5/intensive support in the state’s school accountability system, the board cannot fire the superintendent, recognize any labor unions or file any lawsuits without the state board’s permission.
The lawsuit is one of two filed in March that assert the state’s authority expired when it passed a five-year deadline established by the Arkansas Educational Support and Accountability Act, which allowed state regulators to take control of the Little Rock school system in 2015.
According to the lawsuits, education authorities illegally extended state control over Little Rock schools past a January expiration date and violated open-government laws by failing to publicly vet the “exit criteria” that the Little Rock schools needed to demonstrate to be eligible for release from state control.