Education notebook

New members join in panel’s meeting

The Arkansas Charter Authorizing Panel has added several new members in recent months, including two who served in their first meeting last week — Emmaline Pilkington and Grant Hodges.

Pilkington is the loyalty and marketing manager at Coulson Oil Co. She is married to Rep. Aaron Pilkington, R-Knoxville.

Hodges is a former threeterm state representative from Rogers. He is executive director of community and government relations and marketing at North Arkansas Community College in Bentonville.

The charter panel is chaired by Deborah Coffman, assistant commissioner for public school accountability.

Other members include Karli Saracini, assistant commissioner for educator effectiveness and licensure; Sonja Wright- McMurray, senior associate director for career and technical education; and Eric Flowers, assistant to the Arkansas education secretary.

Still other members are Phillip Baldwin of Batesville, a retired bank executive, and former Arkansas Board of Education

members Naccaman Williams of Springdale, who is director of special projects for the Walton Family Foundation, and Toyce Newton, who is chief executive officer at Phoenix Youth and Family Services based in Crossett.

Answers requested in school lawsuits

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis is asking parties for answers in four separate but similar lawsuits over a challenge to the state’s School Choice Act.

The cases were filed in 2019 by the south Arkansas school districts of Hope, Camden-Fairview, Junction City and Lafayette County against state officials.

In December, a threejudge panel of the appeals court upheld a lower court’s decision to modify the districts’ desegregation plans to bar School Choice Act interdistrict student transfers.

The districts had argued that student transfers would result in white flight and hinder compliance with their federal court-approved desegregation plans and orders.

In response to attorneys for the state and the U. S. Department of Justice, the 8th Circuit Court in March granted a petition for rehearing and vacated its previous opinion and judgment.

“After further review, the court has determined that additional briefing is required,” the appeals court announced this month, “and the parties are directed to file simultaneous supplemental briefs” to address court questions.

The questions are primarily directed to the Justice Department, which had proposed that the case — particularly the Junction City lawsuit — be returned to the U.S. District Judge Susan Hickey.

“Would these proceedings allow the district court to make further ‘record-based findings’ related to its modification of the consent decrees?” the appeals court asked. “If so, would such a remand be appropriate because there was already an evidentiary hearing, and what further ‘record-based findings’ could the district court make that would justify its modification of the consent decrees?

“The United States also suggests that the Court could remand the cases to the district court for a determination on whether unitary status has been achieved. Please identify the legal authority you believe exists that would permit our Court to order such a hearing and the reasons you believe warrant or advise against such a hearing,” the appeals court said.