The Pulaski County Special School District has met the requirements of its desegregation Plan 2000 in regard to staffing, including provisions for black administrators, an attorney for the district told a federal judge Thursday.
Whitney Moore asked U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr., the presiding judge in the long-running Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit, to refer the staffing issue to a federal magistrate.
The magistrate's role would be to mediate an agreement on the staffing compliance between the school district and the attorneys for black students known as the Joshua intervenors -- if the two parties cannot first come to an agreement on their own.
The Pulaski County Special district raised the staffing issue at a short hearing conducted by Marshall on the status of the Pulaski County district's efforts to be declared unitary in six areas of its operation.
The 18,000-student district, a defendant in the 31-year-old school desegregation lawsuit, remains under federal court supervision for failing to meet the provisions of its desegregation Plan 2000 that deal with school facilities, special education, staffing, student discipline, student achievement and self-monitoring.
The Little Rock and North Little Rock school districts are parties in the same case, but they have already been released from court monitoring of their desegregation efforts.
"We believe we are unitary in regard to staffing," Moore told the judge, but he also said that Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, the lead attorney for the Joshua intervenors, disagrees with that "to some extent." Moore said the district has prepared a nine-page letter for Walker that details its efforts to comply with staffing requirements. That letter would be a starting point for reaching a settlement, she said.
The district and the intervenors are already working with a magistrate to reach an agreement that the district is unitary in regard to special education services to students.
Walker was involved in another legal matter in another city Thursday and could not attend the desegregation hearing. Walker's co-counsel Austin Porter Jr. attended, and Robert Pressman of Lexington, Mass., participated by telephone.
"We are hopeful that he will respond to our letter," Moore said of Walker. She said the parties would report back to Marshall in December about any progress on staffing. A hearing is already set for Dec. 18.
Any agreement between the parties would be presented to Marshall with a request that the district be declared unitary -- or in compliance with the staffing provision in the plan -- and released from federal court supervision on that matter.
The judge set Aug. 29 as the deadline for the Joshua intervenors to decide on whether there are grounds for a settlement on staffing.
In her comments to the judge, Moore referred to staffing concerns reported this past spring by Margie Powell, the former court-appointed desegregation monitor and now court expert.
Powell said in the June report that the district was making good progress toward unitary status in several areas. But she said the district had declining numbers of central office administrators who were black, and that the gap between the percentage of black teachers and the black students had grown. Powell also said there were few gains in the district's low numbers of black teachers working in early childhood education, primary grades and secondary core academic courses.
Moore told the judge there are 17 black administrators working in the central office, constituting more than 30 percent of that staff. However, the superintendent's nine-member cabinet of department heads and top advisors included only one black administrator. That is changed for this new school year. There are now seven white and five black members as a result of a reorganization of the group, she said.
Additionally, Moore said the district is working to establish funding for incentives to be used to entice current teachers to move to different schools to improve the racial diversity at schools that have "racially identifiable" or predominantly white staffs. The district had 14 schools with racially identifiable staffs. That number is projected to be between five and nine in this new school year.
The district's other efforts include raising money to provide hiring incentives to black teacher candidates for jobs in early childhood programs, primary grades, and in core academic courses in the middle and high schools.
Additionally, the district this past year began an "aspiring principals academy" for black staff members who are interested in becoming principals, Moore said.
Moore acknowledged Powell's concerns about the gap between the percentage of black teachers in the district, which was about 24.4 percent this past school year and the 44 percent black student body. But Moore told the judge that the Plan 2000 does not obligate the district to narrow that gap.
Moore and other attorneys at the hearing gave the judge an update on the Jacksonville community's efforts to form its own school district and committed the Pulaski County Special district to continue the services once provided by "home school counselors." The election on the proposed school district is set for Sept. 16. The home school counselor jobs were eliminated for this coming year, but school counselors and others will work with families of students who are at risk of school failure.
Pressman, an attorney for the Joshua intervenors, expressed some concern at the end of Thursday's hearing about the Pulaski County Special district's "belated" efforts at desegregation plan compliance and the need for the school district to show good faith effort to comply with its plan for an extended period of time.
Marshall acknowledged his concerns but also commended the parties for the work they have been doing and urged them to continue that.
"The new spirit of collaboration that is inundating the parties is important," Marshall said. "I'm convinced the best way to get things done is for the parties to work together informally as they have been doing. For the district to say, for example, 'We think we are doing right,' and for Joshua to say, 'Well, we're not quite so sure. This is good but here is a little bit that needs to be different.'"
He encouraged the parties to continue with good faith efforts to remedy to the degree practicable the district's identified problems.
Metro on 08/15/2014