LR schools ask judge to delay aid cutoff

Considering likely harm to students, wait till 8th Circuit weighs in, filing says

— The Little Rock School District asked a federal judge Monday to delay his order from last week that calls for ending millions of dollars in state desegregation aid to the Pulaski County school districts, until an appeal is decided by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Court of Appeals.

Chris Heller and Clay Fendley, attorneys for the Little Rock district, told U.S. District Judge Brian S. Miller that the state’s largest school district and its students will be irreparably harmed without a stay of Miller’s order that relieved the state from paying much of the desegregation aid it has been paying for two decades. That aid totals nearly $70 million a year to the districts, more than half of that going to Little Rock.

“There is no way for LRSD to adjust its budget to accommodate the loss of approximately $38 million, more than 10 percent of its total budget, without a substantial negative impact on the education of over 25,000 students,” Heller and Fendley said.

The attorneys said the district has already hired teachers for next year. The fear is that if the district lays off teachers in response to the court order and is later allowed to recall them, they would already have found other jobs, the attorneys said.

“Moreover, it is unlikely that LRSD can continue to operate the magnet schools absent the funding provided” by a 1989 financial settlement agreement between the state and other parties in the 28-year-old school desegregation lawsuit, the attorneys said. “Dismantling LRSD’s magnet schools will irreparably harm LRSD’s ability to provide students a quality, desegregated education.”

In their motion for a stay, the attorneys argued that the school district is likely to succeed at the 8th Circuit in reversing Miller’s decision. The likelihood of success of an appeal is one of the legal considerations for granting a stay.

Heller and Fendley wrote that the school district “was entitled to notice and a hearing before the state, an adjudicated constitutional violator, was relieved of its desegregation obligations. No party asked this Court to modify or terminate the consent decree, and no party supports ending funding in a manner that will disrupt the education of thousands of students.”

On Thursday, Miller issued a 110-page order in response to requests from the Pulaski County Special and North Little Rock school districts to be declared unitary, or desegregated, and released from further court monitoring of their desegregation efforts.

Miller found the two districts only partially unitary. He also found that state payments to the three districts were a problem in that the districts are “rewarded” for failing to comply with their desegregation plans, and they face the loss of the state aid if they comply.

“It seems that the state of Arkansas is using a carrot and stick approach with these districts but that the districts are wise mules that have learned how to eat the carrot and sit down on the job,” Miller said in releasing the state from its obligation to pay for most desegregation efforts.

The state remains responsible for funding the majority-to-minority interdistrict student transfer program. But Miller directed the districts to submit legal briefs within 30 days to show cause why the transfer program’s funding should not stop, as well.

On Friday, the Little Rock district filed a notice of its intent to appeal the funding part of the order to the 8th Circuit.

The 8th Circuit on Monday told the Little Rock district to file its initial legal brief in the appeal by July 5.

Aaron Sadler, a spokesman for the Arkansas attorney general’s office, said Monday that state officials were studying the Little Rock district’s motion for a stay of Miller’s order and had no comment about the latest legal developments.

The Little Rock district attorneys said the six original special-program magnet schools constitute half of the district’s “truly desegregated” schools with enrollments ranging from 40 to 60 percent black. The state pays half the education costs and all of the transportation costs for the six schools: Booker, Carver Gibbs, Williams elementaries and Horace Mann Middle and Parkview High schools.

If the magnet schools are dismantled, Little Rock students would be left to attend “racially identifiable” or virtually one-race schools, the attorneys said. About a third of the magnet students are from North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special districts, and it is unlikely those districts would agree to transport the students to the magnet schools without the state funding, the attorneys said.

“If these students are forced to change schools, it will be difficult to get these students to return to magnet schools even if the district court’s decision is reversed,” Heller and Fendley said. “The uncertainty about the future of magnet schools will likely result in many affluent students fleeing to private schools resulting in increasing concentrations of poverty within LRSD.”

In their motion, Heller and Fendley compared Miller’s order to a 1991 case in Kansas City, Mo., in which a judge was found to be in error when he declared that city’s school system unitary without taking evidence.

“The court’s error is even more serious given that the Eighth Circuit expressly ordered components of the interdistrict remedy that [Miller] now finds are a ‘problem,’” the attorneys said.

The attorneys said the Miller ruling is inconsistent with the 8th Circuit’s own 2009 ruling that said the Little Rock district is a unitary district. They said Miller unfairly “lumped” Little Rock in with its neighboring districts in comparing the districts to “wise mules ... sitting down on the job.”

The state’s desegregation obligations continue after all three districts are declared unitary, the attorneys said. The state was earlier found responsible for failing to desegregate the districts and for perpetuating residential segregation. The 1989 financial agreement should remain in force until the state has remedied the earlier violations, Heller and Fendley wrote.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/24/2011

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