Trials set for ’17, ’18 in dispute on schools
Staffs, buildings in county at issue
A federal judge presiding in the 34-year-old school desegregation lawsuit on Wednesday scheduled trials for 2017 and 2018 on efforts by the Pulaski County Special and Jacksonville school districts to meet their staffing and school construction obligations.
U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. told representatives of the two districts and the Joshua intervenors — who are black students in the districts — that the trials will only be held if the parties are unable to resolve their differences in discussions among themselves or with the help of a federal magistrate.
“I agree with you that some more informal discussions are good, but I think there has got to be a cutoff to it,” Marshall told the attorneys at a regular quarterly status conference in the case Wednesday. He set trial dates of Sept. 11, 2017, for the Pulaski County Special district and Feb. 5, 2018, for the Jacksonville/ North Pulaski district.
Both the Pulaski County Special district and the new Jacksonville district, which was carved out of the Pulaski County Special district, remain under federal court supervision in regard to their compliance with the Pulaski County
Special district’s 16-year-old desegregation plan, known as Plan 2000. Staffing practices, student discipline practices and the construction of new campuses comparable to schools in more affluent parts of Pulaski County are among the issues monitored by the court.
Allen Roberts, an attorney for the Pulaski County Special district, told Marshall on Wednesday that Pulaski County Special district leaders believe they have have met the requirements to be declared unitary and released from federal court monitoring on staffing practices.
But Roberts acknowledged that the Joshua intervenors are not yet prepared to take a position on the staffing issue and that any stand taken by the intervenors will likely be delayed by the fact that John Walker, the lead attorney for the intervenors, is a member of the Arkansas Legislature that will convene in regular session Jan. 9, 2017.
Marshall said he would ask U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerome Kearney to set a settlement conference date for the parties for April. The magistrate judge would meet with the attorneys then, if the Joshua intervenors and Pulaski County Special district leaders are unable to reach an agreement on their own by an as yet unspecified date in March on whether the school district has met the requirements of Plan 2000 in regard to staffing practices.
“In addition,” Marshall said, “I think it would be useful to have a trial date in mind on the staffing issue so, if the parties do not agree by stipulation and if the magistrate can’t bring you together, we have a date … for parties to present the evidence and for me to decide on staffing.”
He said his decision will be “either the county district has made it, or here are the deficiencies under Plan 2000 that need fixing.
“We are going to make progress on this staffing issue for the county district one way or another this coming year,” the judge said.
The staffing and school construction issues were more contentious Wednesday between the Joshua intervenors and the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district.
The new district — as a condition of it being established in 2014 — must meet the same desegregation obligations as the Pulaski County Special School District from which the new system was carved.
Walker told the judge that while he believed the Pulaski County Special district was working in good faith with the Joshua intervenors on staffing and buildings, he said there has been “no progress” with the Jacksonville district.
In regard to staffing, Walker argued that the Jacksonville district was seeking a racial makeup of staff that is reflective of the overall teacher workforce in the central Arkansas area rather than one that is more reflective of the majority-black student enrollment in the new district.
The district’s enrollment this school year is 3,927, of whom 1,994, or 50.8 percent, are black.
In regard to the Jacksonville district’s plans for replacing all of its eight current schools with six new or renovated buildings by 2035, Walker said the time frame is too long and denies black students the opportunity to attend facilities that are equal to newer facilities in Maumelle, Cabot and other surrounding communities.
“I won’t be here and you will be on the Supreme Court,” the 79-year-old Walker told Marshall about the nearly 20-year time period.
Walker said it would be to the Jacksonville district’s benefit to involve the Joshua intervenors early on in the planning for buildings. He argued that the district gave more attention to athletic facilities than to academic space in the design of the new Jacksonville High School, which is scheduled to open in August 2019.
He said the exterior design of the new Jacksonville High School resembles the Pulaski County detention center on Roosevelt Road in Little Rock.
The attorney and state lawmaker also suggested that the state of Arkansas is obligated to help the Jacksonville district pay for more timely school construction — above and beyond the state’s existing program to help pay for school construction.
Scott Richardson, an attorney for the Jacksonville district, told the judge that the new district has a very extensive building plan now where none existed just a few years ago, and that “a vast majority” of Jacksonville students — 76 percent of students overall and 80 percent of the district’s black students — would be in new schools or newly renovated schools within seven years.
Richardson said Jacksonville-area voters approved a 7.6-mill tax increase for buildings in February, giving the district a 48.3-mill tax rate — the second-highest in the state. He told the judge it wouldn’t be prudent to base a school building plan on an even higher property tax rate or additional state revenue, but instead base it on money “we can reasonably anticipate.”
He said he believes the building plan meets the requirements of Plan 2000.
Last January, Marshall approved the new district’s master facilities plan that included the construction of a replacement $57 million high school, a single school to replace Arnold Drive and Tolleson elementary schools, and the addition of four multipurpose rooms to the four remaining elementary schools. The judge conditioned that approval on the district submitting to him by Dec. 31 plans for replacing the four remaining elementaries “so that all the new district’s elementary schools are equal.”
The construction timeline starts with a replacement school for the current Arnold Drive and Tolleson elementaries, which would open in August 2018, and the new Jacksonville High to open in August 2019.
Additionally, repairs and renovations of at least $2.5 million would be made to Jacksonville Middle School, which is in the former North Pulaski High School building.
New components of the plan call for replacing Dupree Elementary, built in 1957, and Pinewood Elementary, built in 1973, with a single new $20 million school once funding becomes available. The estimated completion date for that school is August 2022.
Taylor Elementary, built in 1981, would be expanded now with the addition of a multipurpose room and replaced at a cost of as much as $17 million in August 2035. Similarly, Bayou Meto Elementary School, built in 1967, also would be replaced for a cost of about $12.5 million by August 2035.
Marshall repeated directives made at earlier status conferences that the parties talk, share information and generally work together to resolve their differences on desegregation plan compliance. He also concluded that the Jacksonville district would benefit from the “certainty of a trial date” in February 2018 if there is not any agreement on either facilities and staffing practices.
“If it is a ‘not’ on one or more of those issues, there needs to be a trial so I can decide for better or for worse and the parties can move on, either to appeal or to other things, be it modifying how they are running their district or whatever the next course is,” he said.
The judge said the Pulaski County Special district’s practices on staffing in recent years overlaps onto the new Jacksonville district’s compliance record, but that Jacksonville also must be held responsible for its hiring of staff after it separated from the Pulaski Special district. He said a February 2018 trial on staffing practices in Jacksonville will take into account two cycles of hiring in the new district, which will benefit the court in making a proper judgment.