Magnet-school panel to dissolve, judge says

Expert instead of monitor office proposed

Big changes are in store for the Office of Desegregation Monitoring and the Magnet Review Committee, both agencies formed more than two decades ago by the federal courts to assist with desegregation efforts in the three Pulaski County school districts.

Document set

School districts takeover and desegregation

The changes are prompted by a settlement in the 31-yearold case that was negotiated last year and approved by U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. in January. The settlement ends state desegregation aid to the districts after the 2017-18 school year and includes other provisions - such as ending any new interdistrict student transfers to magnet schools - to bring the lawsuit to a conclusion.

Marshall said at a hearing Friday that the Magnet Review Committee, which is made up of state, district and parent representatives who set policy and budgets for Little Rock’s six original magnet schools, will be disbanded after the June 30 conclusion of this school year.

The judge proposed - but did not finalize - a plan for transforming the Office of Desegregation Monitoring’s chief monitor into the role of a court-appointed expert and closing the monitoring office at the end of June.The court-appointed expert would submit written reports to the judge on desegregation efforts in the Pulaski County Special School District but would work from home and possibly be paid on an hourly basis under a maximum cap, the judge suggested.

The changes envisioned for both the Office of Desegregation Monitoring and the Magnet Review Committee solidify the return to at least two of the three Pulaski County school districts of their authority to operate schools without reporting to or answering to outside organizations with ties to the federal court.

Also during Friday’s court hearing, Marshall declared the Pulaski County Special district unitary, or in compliance with, its desegregation Plan 2000 in regard to the awarding of scholarships to students.

The district will award 20 scholarships of $2,500 each to black students beginning this school year. The scholarships were $1,000 each and awarded to both black and white students in past years.

The judge also announced Friday that he would appoint a magistrate “sooner rather than later” to assist the Pulaski County district in complying with its desegregation plan and being declared unitary.

The Pulaski County Special district is the only one of the three Pulaski County school districts that has not been declared fully unitary, or desegregated, and released from federal court supervision. The district remains under court supervision for racial inequities in the areas of student discipline, facilities, student achievement, special education, staffing and monitoring.

Marshall asked the parties in the lawsuit to react by April 15 to his proposal for establishing a court-appointed expert in the case.

“In my view, the continued work of an arm of the court - a neutral - that can look at what the Pulaski County Special district is doing, what [the Joshua intervenors are] doing and what the facts are on the ground and report to the court in a neutral fashion - that is essential to us in moving the case forward in the next months and perhaps a year or more,” Marshall said.

The Joshua intervenors represent black students in the district.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis ordered the establishment of the Office of Desegregation Monitoring in 1991 out of what had been the Office of the Metropolitan Supervisor, another federal court-created office for developing countywide desegregation plans.

The purpose of the monitoring office has been to assist the districts in complying with their desegregation plans and to report those district efforts to the court.

The monitoring office staff has been larger in the past but currently includes Chief Monitor Margie Powell, an office manager and a part-time chief financial officer.

The office has been funded largely with a $200,000 annual payment from the state. The three districts made up any other costs for the office.

The Little Rock and North Little Rock districts stopped contributing once they were declared unitary and no longer subject to monitoring. The Pulaski County Special district contributed about $35,000 to the office for this school year.

Before Marshall proposed the court expert, Allen Roberts, an attorney for the Pulaski County Special district, told the judge that he had no objection to the continued operation of the monitoring office and welcomed anyone to look at what the district is doing to achieve unitary status.

John Walker, an attorney for the Joshua intervenors, told Marshall that the monitoring office has been helpful and he favored its continuation. He said the state should be held responsible for funding the office until the Pulaski County Special district is declared unitary. He argued that the new settlement in the case did not necessarily excuse the state from the 8th Circuit directive to pay for the office.

Assistant Attorney General Scott Richardson told the judge that after June 30, the state has no financial obligations in the desegregation case, except the four years of desegregation payments set in the settlement.

“We don’t have a checkbook, but we do have technical resources we can provide,” Richardson said in regard to assistance to the Pulaski County Special district.

Marshall told the attorneys he was uncertain as to whether he has the authority to order the state to continue paying for the staff and office, which is housed in the Union National Plaza building in downtown Little Rock, and he was reluctant to make the Pulaski County Special district foot the entire cost.

“The district has lots of things to do that it needs to spend money on. If I ordered the district to pick up the entire slack and pay the entire budget, that’s $200,000 that is not going into the classroom, not going toward scholarships, not going toward special education,” he said. “That concerns me.”

In making the proposal for the court-appointed expert, Marshall offered many thanks to Powell and her staff and all of their predecessors in the office.

Powell would become the court-appointed expert as allowed by federal rules of evidence, Marshall said. Her role would be defined by him.

“Essentially, she would be doing what she has been doing, except out of her house and on a consulting basis, and continuing to work with the districts and with Joshua, filing reports to me so I can understand what is going on, and testifying as need be if the parties come into dispute down the line,” he said.

The change would result in a more formal and structured system of communication between the judge and the expert, he said.

The Magnet Review Committee, like the Office of Desegregation Monitoring, was created at the suggestion of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals when in 1985 the parties in the case were planning the use of interdistrict, special-program magnet schools as a voluntary remedy to constitutional violations in the school districts. The schools offer special academic programs as a way to draw both black and white students to otherwise hard-to-desegregate campuses.

The policy-setting committee is made up of two representatives from the state Department of Education, a representative from each of the three school districts and a representative of the Joshua intervenors.

The committee has operated an office that was staffed by a director and an administrative assistant. The director, Donna Grady Creer, died last year and was not replaced. Her assistant, Sandy Leuhrs, has operated the office in Creer’s absence.

In past years and including this year, the state has paid for half the cost of educating magnet-school students and 100 percent of their transportation costs. The three districts made up the difference in the costs for the schools.

The Magnet Review Committee office had a budget of $185,000 this year, with the state paying $92,500 and the three districts splitting the remainder. Because Creer was not replaced and because the Little Rock district assumed some of the other expenses, the office has about $120,000 in reserves, Sadie Mitchell,chairman of the committee, said Friday after the hearing.

Walker had asked Marshall to clarify the committee’s status in the aftermath of the new settlement, which ends any new enrollment of North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special district students into Little Rock’s six magnet schools.

The settlement allows the current magnet-school students to continue in their schools until they finish all grades. The districts have subsequently agreed for the coming year to allow fifth and eighth-grade magnet students to move to the next level of magnet schools.

Walker argued to the judge in support of keeping the Magnet Review Committee as a way to support current magnet-school students for at least the next few years.

Chris Heller, an attorney for the Little Rock district,told the judge that the magnet-school operations have already reverted to the Little Rock district and the purposes for the Magnet Review Committee “no longer exist.” He told the judge that the district has already designated Central High and Dunbar Middle School to be part of the district’s own magnet-school system - without input from the Magnet Review Committee.

The judge ruled in the court session that the Magnet Review Committee will cease to exist after June 30. He said he didn’t believe the court could rule otherwise, given the terms of the new settlement.

But he called for cooperation among the districts and other parties in the case.

“It would seem to me to be a recipe for trouble for the district not to have some vehicle for regular communication and involvement from personnel in the other districts if students from those districts are going to be in the magnet schools,” Marshall told Heller.

Heller told the judge that there have been dozens of meetings and email exchanges on how to carry out the changes envisioned in the approved settlement. There has been cooperation in setting registration deadlines, printing school brochures and holding a recruiting fair, he said. The communication is taking place, he said.

Walker told the judge he was unaware of most of the meetings and other efforts, prompting him to seek clarification about the role of the Magnet Review Committee.

“I believe good faith does abound,” Marshall told Heller. “Please, especially during this transition period over the next few months, please keep your Brother Walker and the Joshua intervenors in the loop on these things as we go forward. We need to maintain that good faith. Will you do so?”

“We will, your honor,” Heller responded.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/05/2014

Upcoming Events