County deseg agreement may come to an end
The court-ordered school desegregation agreement that has been in place for Garland County for more than 30 years could come to an end soon as the seven school districts work toward unitary status.
The Garland County Education Consortium, made of the schools’ superintendents, one board member from each district, and the president of the local chapter of the NAACP as an ex officio member, met at The Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce on Thursday for its annual meeting where it discussed the school desegregation case’s comprehensive settlement agreement.
Garland County remains the only county in the state with such an agreement in place. The newly-elected president of the group, Hot Springs School District Superintendent Stephanie Nehus, said unitary status is the goal and ultimate purpose of the group.
“Last year at this annual meeting, the State Department made it very clear that we had to be working towards unitary status,” she said following the meeting. “And then if we were not doing that, then we would all be put on probationary status in standards for accreditation, which is a pretty big sanction from the state. And that requires oversights and just some different things.”
The Arkansas Public School Choice Act of 1989 required all school districts in the state to allow for the free transfer of students between districts, regardless of where they live. As a result of its implementation, several citizens within the county, most notably the NAACP, began to fear the potential of a white flight taking place.
White flight, as it relates to schools, is the departure of white residents from racially mixed districts to heavily white districts in reaction to court-ordered school desegregation.
Unitary status, she noted, would end the agreement that was put in place over 30 years ago.
“That deseg agreement requires us to do School Choice differently, and then all those different components that we talked about today are part of the agreement — the recruiting and the collaboration and all of those different things, the annual meeting. And so we have been collaborating and working towards either coming to an agreement to end the agreement, or the districts have engaged with lawyers to file the petition for unitary status,” she said.
As part of the agreement, the Garland County Education Consortium must meet at least semiannually to discuss enrollment fluctuations, ratio of Black students to white students, school racial ratios, compliance of each district with the Arkansas Educational Standards, any issues related to consolidation, potential for joint and/or bulk purchasing, and the sharing of programs and personnel between and among districts.
Thursday’s discussion revolved around
the group being at the stage in which it has to give the department a deadline, she said.
“We have to do quarterly reports to the department on what our progress towards unitary status is, and so we’ve been doing those every year,” she said. “We had to put in our quarterly reports this last year an actual date that we will file for unitary status, and so that date falls very soon. It falls this year in 2023. So we are at a point where we have to either work together and negotiate an agreement to end the agreement or amend it in some form or fashion, or the districts have to file for unitary status with the courts.”
She said depending on the outcome, the agreement could end as early as next year.
“If we have to file with the courts, then we’re waiting on the 8th Circuit Court, and so it would be whenever we go before that court. Which, that could be next year, that could be two years from now, you know, you just never know. That would be (Chief) Judge (Susan O.) Hickey, would have to set that date, and then we would then comply with that date. If we can come with an agreement, it would be sooner than that,” she said.
In addition to the superintendents, board members and other representatives from each of the seven school districts, attendees included the attorneys involved in the case, local government officials, and representatives from the Arkansas Department of Education, Garland County NAACP, Dawson Education Cooperative, the Arkansas Public School Resource Center, The Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce and Hot Springs Metro Partnership.