Four school districts to go before court

A panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at St. Louis has scheduled oral arguments for Dec. 11 in four very similar Arkansas lawsuits over interdistrict school choice in the Hope, Junction City, Lafayette County and Camden Fairview school districts.

The hearing is one of several set to begin at 9 a.m. that day before 8th Circuit Judges Ralph Erickson of Fargo, N.D.; Michael Melloy of Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Jonathan Kobes of Sioux Falls, S.D.

In January, at the request of the four districts, U.S. District Judge Susan O. Hickey modified the districts’ court-approved desegregation plans and decrees to prohibit segregative student transfers in or out of the four districts — except in case of education or compassionate need.

The Arkansas attorney general’s office — representing the state Department of Education and Board of Education — appealed Hickey’s rulings to the 8th Circuit.