A federal appeals court said Monday that it will not delay a December trial in a lower court on the state’s request to be released from a 1989 agreement in the Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit.
Last week, attorneys for the Little Rock School District asked the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis for a stay in what is expected to be a two-week hearing to begin Dec. 9 before U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr.
“The motion to stay the district court’s proceedings has been considered by the court and is denied,” the 8th Circuit said in a one-sentence decision issued Monday afternoon without elaboration.
The Arkansas attorney general’s office, which is representing the Arkansas Department of Education in the 30-year-old case, had urged the appeals court last week to deny the motion for a stay and to allow the December hearing to proceed.
The state is seeking to be released from a settlement agreement that requires it to pay about $70 million in annual desegregation aid to the Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special school districts, with about $42 million of that going to the Little Rock system.
The state representatives argued that the Little Rock district waited too long to seek the delay and that a stay would “disparage the work that has been done to prepare for trial and will leave the community and the state in limbo over questions that need to be answered.”
The attorney general’s office also said the district “ignored” the factors that courts consider in deciding stays, including whether the applicant showed its likelihood of success in an appeal, whether the applicant would be irreparably harmed absent a stay, whether other parties would be irreparably harmed and what is in the public interest.
“We agree with the Court’s decision and we appreciate the Court’s issuance of its ruling in such a timely manner,” Aaron Sadler, a spokesman for Attorney General Dustin McDaniel,said Monday.
Efforts to reach Little Rock attorneys Chris Heller and Clay Fendley by email Monday afternoon were not successful.
The Little Rock district opposes the state’s release from the 1989 agreement. The district had asked the 8th Circuit to put off the hearing in Marshall’s courtroom until after the appeals court rules on the school district’s earlier legal challengeto state-approved charter schools in Pulaski County.
Written arguments have been submitted to the 8th Circuit in the charter school dispute, but the oral arguments that would precede any 8th Circuit ruling are not expected to be take place until 2014 - after the hearing in Marshall’s court.
The Little Rock district’s attorneys argued first to Marshall and then to the 8th Circuit that nearly a dozen publicly funded, independently operated charter schools hinder desegregation efforts in Pulaski County. They say that violates the state’s obligation in the 1989 agreement to support magnet schools and interdistrict student-transfer programs in Pulaski County.
“One of the most important and potentially dispositive issues to be tried in the district court is whether the State has complied in good faith with the consent decree,” the Little Rock district said in a motion for the stay last week.
“In the present appeal, LRSD contends that the state violated the consent degree by authorizing open enrollment charter schools in Pulaski County,” Heller and Fendley wrote. “Thus, the fundamental issue of the State’s good faith compliance with the consent decree is currently pending both in this Court and in the district court. Without knowing whether this Court will hold that the state is in violation of the consent decree, the district court will be unable to determine at trial whether the State has complied in good faith with the consent decree, and ultimately, whether the State should be released from the consent decree.”
In a Jan. 17 order, Marshall said the 1989 settlement did not address charter schools and that the charter school enrollment in the county had little effect on student participation in the districts’ magnet schools and interdistrict student-transfer programs.
“[N]o reasonable fact finder could conclude that the State is in material breach of the parties’ 1989 Settlement Agreement as to open-enrollment charter schools in Pulaski County,” Marshall wrote in January as he began steps to hear the state’s pending request to be released from the 1989 settlement obligations.
Marshall twice denied requests by the Little Rock district and Joshua intervenors who represent black students to delay the December hearing.
“The right to appeal is important and should be freely exercised. But this case needs decisions, not limbo,” Marshall wrote in September.
“The upcoming trial on the State’s motion for release provides no occasion for this Court to revisit the charter-school issue now,” Marshall elaborated in an last Tuesday. “That issue is on appeal. We’ll see, in due course, whether it was decided correctly. In the meantime, other aspects of the case need attention.”
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 10/29/2013