NLR to let kids use phones on campus
The North Little Rock School Board has changed the student handbook to allow students to use cellphones on campus before and after school, during lunch and in planned classroom instruction.
Previously, cellphones that were used or possessed by students after the first bell of the school day and before the last bell of the day were subject to confiscation by school officials. The phones are still subject to being confiscated if they are used outside the permitted times, according to the newly revised rules.
The relaxing of the rules for cellphones use may take some of the sting out of rule changes regarding dress and public displays of affection that are in store for students in the school year that begins Aug. 18.
Shorts and skirts worn by North Little Rock School District students can be no more than three inches above the top of their knees, according to the recent School Board-approved handbook revisions. Spandex clothing or leggings worn as outer garments also are prohibited.
As for showing affection between students -- that is limited to hand-holding.
The new handbook will be available online for the first time to parents and students. Students or parents must specifically ask for a paper copy of the document to get anything other than the online version. However, parents will still receive paper copies of the different forms that they are asked to sign on behalf of their children.
Hughes enrollment falls, merger likely
The enrollment in the Hughes School District fell below 350 students in each of the two previous school years and, as a result, the district will likely be subject to a state-ordered merger to another school system by July 2015.
School districts that fall below the minimum-required 350 students in two consecutive years are subject to consolidation with or annexation to another district, according to Arkansas Code Annotated 6-13-1603
The state Board of Education typically deals with school district merger issues in the late winter or spring for the next school year. In the meantime, the State Education Department will work with the Hughes district to further examine student attendance records for compliance with attendance and reporting laws.
The Education Department also is required to annually publish a list of any school districts that have fallen below the 350-student enrollment minimum in just one school year.
The Hartford School District and the Kirby School District fell below the 350-minimum requirement in 2013-14. The two districts, along with the Hughes district, are now restricted from incurring debt -- including entering into employment contracts -- without prior written approval from the Arkansas Department of Education.
Attorneys in lawsuit renew fees request
Attorneys for the legal team that represents black students in the 31-year-old Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit have renewed their request for $3.3 million in state-paid legals fees.
John C. Williams and Hank Bates first petitioned U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. in June for the award of fees from the state to the legal team led by Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, for work representing black students known as the Joshua intervenors.
The request was for work performed between November 1993 to the present, multiplied by a 75 percent "enhancer," which is a payment feature used to set legal fees in cases that are extraordinary in terms of their complexity and duration.
The Arkansas attorney general's office responded in July, asking that the fee request be significantly reduced because it "relies upon inadequate and legally deficient documentation."
Williams and Bates on Wednesday submitted a 47-page response and 17 accompanying exhibits to the judge to refute the state's arguments.
"The 1989 Settlement Agreement [in the desegregation lawsuit] obligated the State to remedy the effects of past discrimination against the black school children of Pulaski County, and the Joshua intervenors have devotedly held the State to that duty," Bates and Williams wrote.
"Their accomplishment has been won through tireless and thankless work over two decades, without compensation from the State (though with much criticism and controversy). By these labors the Joshua intervenors have fully earned the $3,318,061.69 in fees requested and documented in this petition," they said.
If the parties in the case do not come to an agreement on their own about the fees, the matter will be decided by the federal courts.
Metro on 08/08/2014