U.S. judge hears of differences in schools’ building conditions

LITTLE ROCK — Some of the construction materials used for the new Mills High School in the Pulaski County Special School District are not as durable as those used at the district’s new Robinson Middle School, a district administrator testified Thursday in federal court.

Curtis Johnson, the district’s executive director of operations since 2018, described the Mills campus he inherited as having easily damaged gypsum board walls in its corridors, an insufficient number of classrooms to house teachers, a small gymnasium and only one janitorial space with running water for servicing the twostory structure.

At the district’s new Robinson Middle School — which like Mills opened to students in August 2018 — the walls are composed of durable concrete blocks, the water fountain backsplashes feature decorative tile, the number of classrooms exceed the state requirements for the size of the student enrollment and the gymnasium is an arena-style facility.

The condition of school buildings was at issue Thursday at a court hearing being held this month to determine if the 12,000-student Pulaski County Special school system has fulfilled its obligations in its desegregation Plan 2000 and related documents and can be declared unitary and released from future federal court monitoring of its operations.

Chief U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. is presiding in the hearing on whether the district has met the mandates in regard to student discipline, student achievement, the condition of school facilities and the self-monitoring of its desegregation work.

The district’s attorneys and leaders contend that the school system has, in good faith, substantially complied with Plan 2000, and should be released from the 37-yearold lawsuit. Attorneys for the district’s black students who are known as the McClendon intervenors argue that the district has not met its obligations and/or has initiatives that are too new to evaluate, and so is not ready for release from court oversight.

Austin Porter Jr., an attorney for the McClendon intervenors, told Johnson on Thursday that he was reminded of the children’s story of The Three Little Pigs and he asked Johnson which of the two schools — Mills or Robinson — he would prefer to be in if threatened by the story’s house-destroying hungry wolf.

“Robinson,” Johnson responded.

He offered assurances later that the Mills building in the district’s more racially diverse southeast section is structurally sound. He said the kitchen with the stainless steel walls is the nicest in the district and the gym’s hardwood floor is of superior quality. He called the Mills 700-seat auditorium beautiful.

Devin Bates and other attorneys for the school district have argued to the judge that the district fulfilled a December 2014 commitment made in the lawsuit to build a new Mills High School for $50 million and to convert the existing Mills High into a middle school building — Mills Middle School — for $5 million.

The agreement was meant to satisfy the Plan 2000 provision on school facilities. That provision calls in part for the district to prepare a plan “so that existing school facilities are clean, safe, attractive and equal.”

The Mills agreement was referred to at the time in 2014 as Plan B. Plan A was a more elaborate construction plan that hinged on a tax increase that did not win voter approval.

The district’s legal team last month asked Marshall to restrict the testimony about the Mills and Robinson building comparisons — to narrow the testimony to whether the district met the requirements of the 2014 court-approved Mills building agreement.

Marshall denied the district’s motion to restrict the testimony but said the 2014 Mills agreement as a replacement for language in the Plan 2000 on facilities could be raised later.

“PCSSD’s motion to limit the proof on the facilities issues, is denied,” the judge wrote in preparation for the court hearing. “Intervenors are entitled to present their case on these issues. This denial is without prejudice, though, to PCSSD’s argument on the merits about Plan B and the weight of the granted joint motion about the Mills facilities.”

In response to questions from Bates, Johnson on Thursday testified that the district will spend $50,072,173 on the new Mills, including $490,744 already obligated for modifications to the facility. The modifications to the school include the application of vinyl/wood coverings to protect corridor walls, alterations to the locker rooms in the indoor practice facility, enhanced backsplashes for the water fountains, construction of trophy cases and musical instrument storage, the addition of two custodial work rooms and renovated space for the school’s Driven self-paced, online instruction program.

Additionally $5,456,635 is being spent on the Mills Middle School, Johnson said.

All that compares with $43,089,763 spent for Robinson Middle School, he said.

Neither Johnson nor Superintendent Charles McNulty were employed by the district when the Robinson and Mills projects were planned, approved and largely completed.

In response to questions from Porter, Johnson said it appeared that efforts to build the Robinson Middle School in the district’s predominantly white and affluent west side diverted money from the Mills projects.

At one time the construction projects at both Mills High and Robinson Middle schools carried $37 million price tags, short of the promised $50 million for Mills High.

Johnson pointed to records indicating that the original “footprint” for Mills was reduced by shrinking 950-square-foot classrooms to 850 square feet, and narrowing corridors as well as lowering corridor ceilings.

DATA ON SUSPENSIONS

Also Thursday, in response to requests from the judge and the McClendon intervenors earlier in the week, the Pulaski County Special district provided a one-page snapshot over five years showing the suspensions levied to black students and students who are white or of other races and ethnicities.

In that time, the difference between suspensions for the two student groups narrowed from 42 percentage points in the 2014-15 school year to 26 percentage points by the 2018-19 school year, the most recent year for which data is available.

In 2014-15, 71% of out-ofschool suspensions were of black students and 29% of the suspensions were of white students in the school system. The gap between the suspensions narrowed to 32 points in 2016-17 and to 28 points in 2017-18.

In the 2018-19 school year, 1,892 of all suspensions, 63%, were administered to black students, and there were 1,100 suspensions of white or other students, 37%, for the 26-point difference.

The district’s Plan 2000 section on discipline calls in part for the district “to continue to gather data which allows a full assessment of its success in achieving its objective of eliminated racial disparities in the imposition of school discipline.”

Porter, the lead attorney for the intervenors, has argued that in addition to the disparity gap in suspensions for black and non-black student groups, black students in the district are suspended at rates disproportionate to their enrollment in the district.

Black students made up about 43 percent of the enrollment in the 2018-19 school year but received 63% of all suspensions.