Desegregation case turns to student discipline

The focus of a federal court hearing on whether the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District has met its desegregation obligations transitioned on Friday from the topic of academics to student discipline practices.

Jacob Smith, the district’s director of student services and federal programs, described for U. S. District Chief Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. the several measures the 4,000-student district has taken to reduce student discipline numbers — particularly those of Black students who made up about 52% of the district enrollment this past year but received 72% of all out-ofschool suspensions.

Some of those steps include:

• A stronger adherence to the student handbook and the consequences it requires for rule violations — be it a parent conference, in-school suspension, out- of- school suspension or expulsion.

• Identification of and training for teachers who may refer students for discipline at higher rates than others.

• Weekly checks of school record-keeping to ensure accurate reporting of discipline incidents.

• A partnership with the Arch Ford Education Services Cooperative to operate the Titan Learning Center and the Hub, both of which are alternative learning education programs for students who aren’t successful in a traditional school program or otherwise flexibility in school hours because of family or work obligations.

• Yearly adjustments to the discipline practices such as allowing in-school suspensions for first-time Level 2 offenses and revamping the progressive discipline steps in the elementary schools to make out-of-school suspensions less likely.

“As we sit here, there is still a discipline disparity between Black and non-Black students,” Austin Porter Jr., an attorney for the McClendon intervenors who are Black students in the school system, told Smith, who was the only person to testify at the daylong hearing.

But Smith said there are improvements in the numbers disciplined and a reduction in the disparity between Black and non-Black students.

“The evidence of the effort is unquestionable,” Smith said of the district’s work at the end of the fifth day of the hearing, which will continue into next week.

“I would argue that we have created a system that other districts should duplicate,” Smith also said.

While 72% of all out-ofschool suspensions were given to Black students this past 2019-20 school year, Smith said that was down from 76% of suspensions in 2018-19 when 1,034 of the district’s total 1,364 out-of-school suspensions were to Black students.

Marshall is holding the court hearing to determine whether the Jacksonville district has met its desegregation obligations in regard to the discipline, academics, staffing incentives and self-monitoring provisions in the desegregation Plan 2000.

The Jacksonville/ North Pulaski district was carved out of the Pulaski County Special School District and began operating on its own in 2016 — with the condition that it meet the Pulaski County Special district’s desegregation obligations in what is a nearly 38-year-old federal school desegregation lawsuit.

The Jacksonville district, represented by attorney Scott Richardson, is seeking to be declared unitary and released from further court monitoring of district operations.

The McClendon intervenors, however, are challenging the Jacksonville district’s assertions that it has complied with its desegregation obligations or that the district’s initiatives to comply are new and as yet unproven.

The desegregation plan’s provisions on discipline call in part for the district “to continue to gather data which allows a full assessment of its success in achieving its objective of eliminating racial disparities in the imposition of school district. [ D] isciplinary records shall be kept on each student concerning the nature of any discipline imposed; the teacher and staff member involved, and the school, race and sex of the student.”

Another provision in the plan calls for district staff to provide for and participate in specific efforts to work with teachers and other staff members to promote achievement of the goal of eliminating racial disparities in school discipline and maintain records showing the specific steps undertaken.

The hearing will continue Tuesday after Marshall and representatives of the district and the intervenors use Monday to visit Jacksonville/ North Pulaski schools and school construction sites.