Pulaski County Special district sets registration

The Pulaski County Special School District has set dates for student registration for the next academic year, but other central Arkansas districts are awaiting a hearing on the proposed school-desegregation settlement before settling on dates.

In the Pulaski County Special district, pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and new students must register for the 2014-2015 academic year; the registration period will run from Jan. 27 to Feb. 7, district spokesman Deborah Roush said in a statement.

No magnet school or majority-to-minority transfer applications will be accepted if the desegregation-settlement agreement passes, Roush added.

If the agreement is finalized, interdistrict student-transfer programs will be phased out in the Little Rock, North Little Rock and the Pulaski County Special districts, the Arkansas-Democrat Gazette has reported.

The state pays about $70 million annually to the three districts under a 1989 agreement. The proposed settlement agreement, reached in November, would end that desegregation aid after the 2017-18 academic year.

A "fairness hearing" for those who object to the tentative agreement has been set for next Monday and Tuesday before U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr., who wanted to hold the hearing before giving his final approval of the settlement.

Registration for the Little Rock School District will be held in late January through early February, district spokesman Pamela Smith told Arkansas Online. Information about magnet schools and majority-to-minority transfer applications in the school district was not immediately available.

Details about the North Little Rock School District's student registration will not be released until after the hearing in district court, the school district's spokesman Shara Brazear said.