LITTLE ROCK — The Little Rock School District asked a federal judge late Wednesday to halt approval of new charter schools and stop expansion of existing charter schools in Pulaski County.
In the motion and 97-page brief filed in U.S. District Court, the district wants the state to pay the district for losing students to Pulaski County charter schools.
The district said the state has failed to hold up its end of a 1989 financial settlement agreement in the 27-year-old lawsuit.
A key complaint is that the state has “unconditionally” approved independently run, open-enrollment charter schools in Pulaski County, draining students away from traditional public schools and hindering efforts to desegregate the three Pulaski County school districts, said Chris Heller, an attorney for the Little Rock School District.
“The combined impact has been to undermine the student assignment aspect of the 1989 settlement agreement,” he said.
The state now pays nearly $70 million annually combined to the Little Rock district, North Little Rock School District and Pulaski County Special School District. In its motion, the Little Rock district asks that the state also pay the full cost of transporting students who are from low-income families to charter schools.
The motion also asks, among other things, that the state be required to develop programs or policies to improve “equal opportunity for an adequate education to all students attending high-poverty schools” in the district, and that the state bear the cost of such programs.
Heller said there’s no estimate of how much additional state money would be needed to meet its requests. The district wants the court to set a hearing to allow all sides to present their arguments.
“We’ve complained to the state board [of education] about this. We’ve negotiated with the attorney general and we haven’t been able to resolve the issue,” Heller said.
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel’s office is reviewing the filing, and could not comment in detail, said spokesman Aaron Sadler.
“We think that it’s unfortunate that it’s taken this turn. But it is what we did expect after our good faith attempt at a settlement reached an impasse,” Sadler said.
In a March 31 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette interview, McDaniel warned that the Little Rock district could face funding cuts if it took the state to court over the charter schools. If the district challenged the state and failed, he said he would advise state officials to stop or phase out its desegregation payments.
“If that means they [the district] go into fiscal distress and they get taken over by the state - then they just do,” McDaniel said.
Gov. Mike Beebe’s spokesman, Matt DeCample, said Wednesday that the governor hadn’t seen the filing, but that the state wants to find a resolution.
“The governor has said on a number of occasions that it’s time to find an end to it[the desegregation case],” De-Cample said. “We’ll see where it goes from here.”
Officials with the state and three districts have met several times to negotiate an end to desegregation funding, and Little Rock officials have repeatedly complained about the state’s approval of charter schools.
On March 30, the Little Rock School Board voted 4-3 to challenge the state in court. Then last month, after meetings aimed at reaching an out of-court settlement, Heller said both sides had reached an impasse.
Tim Clark, board president for the Pulaski County Special School District, said Wednesday night that the Little Rock district’s move was a “total shock and surprise.” He said he would have to review the filings with his fellow board members and district officials.
“I didn’t expect to see this so soon [after last month’s meeting],” Clark said.
As part of the 1989 agreement, the state promised not to hinder desegregation in the districts.
Little Rock district officials have complained that while the 10 charter schools in Pulaski County say they want to serve poor and/or underachieving students, such students make up a small portion of their enrollments.
The students often live too far from the schools, the district said, and the schools and the state don’t provide transportation.
As a result, charter schools are attracting higher-achieving students from higher-income families, and upsetting the mix of students in traditional public schools, the district has said.
By losing the students, traditional public schools lose funding and are left with a disproportionate share of high-need students, and without adequate resources to meet those needs, Heller has said.
Charles Armstrong, president of the Little Rock School Board, said Wednesday that he hadn’t seen the latest filing but that it has been a long time coming.
“The issue as I know it was to tell the state that if charter schools come in and say that they’re going to take 60 percent of theirs as basic and below in student achievement, that they would hold them to that agreement,” Armstrong said. “That’s the whole issue of the complaint.”
Other school and state officials contacted late Wednesday declined to comment because they hadn’t yet seen the filing.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/20/2010