Students: Don’t end academy

Intervenors object to districts’ proposal to redirect $1.45M

Attorneys for Black students in the long-running federal Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit are objecting to plans to end the Dr. Charles W. Donaldson Scholars Academy at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Attorneys for the students, known as the McClendon intervenors, have asked U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr., to deny a joint motion made earlier this year by the Pulaski County Special and Jacksonville/North Pulaski school districts to reallocate the academy funds to other purposes.

Marshall is the presiding judge in the 41-year-old school desegregation lawsuit in which the Pulaski Special and Jacksonville districts are the remaining defendants.

Attorneys for the two districts had notified the judge in February that the academy would close down at the end of this school year. They proposed that the $1.45 million left for the academy be divided between the districts and used for improving facilities.

The Donaldson Academy was designed to help high school students — with special attention to Black students — overcome academic and socioeconomic barriers to college enrollment.

In May 2014, the Pulaski Special district and attorneys for the class of all Black students in the district, who were known at the time as the Joshua intervenors, received approval from Marshall to expand the already existing Dr. Charles W. Donaldson initiative.

The Scholars Academy became an amendment to the Pulaski Special district’s Desegregation Plan 2000. The amendment called for the Pulaski Special district to direct $10 million of its special desegregation funding from the state to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Philander Smith College for the academy that was expected to last 10 years.

The money was to provide once-a-month Saturday classes during the school year, plus summer residential programs, on the two campuses for Pulaski County Special district students who were otherwise not likely to consider college an option.

In the early days of the academy operation, the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District was carved out of the Pulaski Special system. Part of the separation agreement stipulated that 20% of PCSSD’s 20162017 payment to Donaldson would be categorized as JNPSD’s share of the contribution toward the Academy.

In 2021, Marshall granted unitary status to both districts in the area of student achievement — the area the academy was meant to address.

Last year, the university sent notice to the districts and to the intervenors that the academy would be discontinued at the end of this school year.

“The last cohort of students admitted into … and receiving support through the Donaldson Academy occurred in the Fall of 2020, ” Mindy Pipkin, the university’s associate general counsel, wrote to the districts last year.

Pipkin said the university would hold the surplus funds until the judge directs how they are to be distributed.

McClendon attorneys Austin Porter Jr., and Robert Pressman objected Friday to reallocating the money to facilities, adding that there is not a compelling reason to discontinue the academy. The team told Marshall that there are students who began in the academy in 2020 but left the academy program with the onset of the covid-19 global pandemic that disrupted education throughout the nation and world.

“McClendon Intervenor monitor Charles Bolden … was able to identify and locate many of these students, and to get commitments from them to re-enter the program,” the attorney team told the judge. “Intervenors were able to secure a list of the Donaldson Academy participants from 2014-2022, and have identified those students who have not completed the program, many of whom only needed a few college hours to complete their degree.”

The attorneys said there were as many as 300 such non-completers.

The intervenors noted that administrators of the academy have left the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. They proposed that Minnie Hatchett of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and an operator of a college-entrance exam preparation program become the academy leader.

“Intervenors believe that to allow these remaining funds to revert to the respective school districts will go against the spirit of the mission of the Donaldson Scholars Academy,” the McClendon attorneys wrote.

“To allow the school districts to take these funds back, would render a disservice to those students that they were intended to help. The need is still there,” they wrote to the judge.

Attorneys for the districts told the judge in February that the purpose of the academy to become unitary or desegregated to the extent possible in academics had been achieved, and that the remaining focus of the districts is on improving facilities.

“The desegregation obligations of both Districts have narrowed and become focused on facilities construction,” they wrote. “As such, PCSSD and JNPSD propose that the residual funds be returned to them to be allocated toward their ongoing desegregation obligations. Specifically, PCSSD and JNPSD propose that the funds be deposited into each of their building funds.”

Devin Bates is the lead attorney for the Pulaski Special district on desegregation matters. Scott Richardson serves in the role for the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district.