Report finds ‘glaring inequities’

Sports complexes unequal, says adviser

The newly constructed sports complexes at Mills High and Joe T. Robinson Middle schools in the Pulaski County Special School District “are not equal,” and someone should have stepped in to correct the “glaring inequities.”

Those are among the findings made by Margie Powell, an expert adviser to the federal judge presiding in the long-running Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit.

Powell visited each of the sports complexes in mid-September and again in late October to prepare the report on the facilities that was requested from her by U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr.

She also met with attorneys for the parties in the lawsuit, and she conferred with the Pulaski County Special district’s previous superintendent, Jerry Guess, about the school construction work that Guess and his staff initiated before he was fired last summer in an unrelated dispute over the employment of attorneys.

“Former district personnel have been quick to point out that the Mills and Robinson projects had different architects, which is true, but district personnel approved the designs,” Powell said in the report to Marshall. “There is some debate on when and how changes in designs were made and by whom. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that the two schools are not equal and someone should have stepped in to correct the glaring inequities between the two projects.”

The Pulaski County Special district is a remaining party in the 34-year-old federal school desegregation lawsuit. As such, the district is subject to court monitoring of some parts of its operation. That includes the district’s efforts to upgrade older campuses that serve high percentages of black and/or poor children to make them equal to the district’s newer schools, such as Maumelle Middle and High schools and Chenal Elementary, that are in wealthier, predominantly white sections of the district.

Janice Warren, interim superintendent of the Pulaski Special district, said Friday after reading Powell’s report that she was disappointed that it appears the district deviated from its commitment to the federal court regarding Mills and that the district may have intentionally built schools that aren’t equitable.

“I don’t want to do anything that is half-done or looks like patchwork,” she said about the district’s next steps. “We set out to provide the best for both communities,” she said, adding that in recent weeks she has involved department heads from all aspects of school operations — academics, special education, athletics and others — to help in the planning for the completion of the schools.

The district’s School Board will hear presentations on the Robinson school project and on upgrades to Mills at its regular monthly meeting 6 p.m. Tuesday.

Sam Jones, the district’s attorney, said Friday that by Nov. 20 he will send to Marshall the district’s response to Powell’s report and to earlier requests from attorneys for the Joshua intervenors, who are black students in the district. The intervenors have asked Marshall to appoint an independent facilities expert to evaluate the quality and equity of the facilities in the district.

Marshall had assigned the task of evaluating the two school sites — particularly the multipurpose indoor athletic facilities — to Powell after Pulaski County Special district leaders alerted the judge in September of possible disparities in the funding and construction of a new Mills High on Dixon Road in the district’s southeast section and the new Robinson Middle on Arkansas 10 in the district’s more affluent and predominantly white west Pulaski County.