Restart school talks, judge urges

Marshall: Separating 2 Pulaski County districts not my job

State Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, is shown in this file photo.
State Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, is shown in this file photo.

A federal judge said Friday that it's not his place to manage the separation of the Pulaski County Special and Jacksonville/North Pulaski school districts, and he urged the parties in the case who have stalled in their negotiations to restart their talks.

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. is shown in this file photo.

"This case is in a moment of uncertainty," U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. told parties in the 32-year-old Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit at a short status conference Friday.

"You all have come to terms on so many things that I'm hopeful that the Jacksonville ... detachment issue can be resolved, as well, or at least the disagreement sharpened to a point where there is an issue of law there for the court to get involved and resolve," Marshall said.

The Friday conference was requested by Pulaski County Special district attorneys, who wanted to report on matters related to the expected July 1, 2016, detachment of the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district.

Allen Roberts, an attorney for the Pulaski County Special district, told the judge he had believed that there would be a signed agreement between the two districts to present to the judge Friday on matters such as staffing, desegregation aid for facilities, and division of assets and liabilities. But that agreement has not been reached in negotiations that largely excluded all attorneys, he said.

State Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, who represents black students known as the Joshua intervenors in the case, had also asked for a conference with the judge, saying he had been left out of talks about the separation of the two districts -- particularly the decision with which he disagrees on the formation of five single-member school board election zones and two at-large election zones in the new district.

Also before the judge Friday was a request from attorneys Patrick Wilson and Scott Richardson asking that the new Jacksonville/North Pulaski district be given recognition as a separate defendant party in the lawsuit, apart from the Pulaski County Special district.

The Arkansas Board of Education in November ordered the establishment of the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District after 95 percent of voters in the area voted in support of a new district at the September school election.

The state directed that the new district, which is expected to serve about 4,000 students, remain a part of the Pulaski County Special district for up to two years so that decisions on dividing students, staff, assets and debts can be made and the new district prepared to operate.

The interim School Board for the new district -- appointed by the state Education Board late last year -- has in recent months hired Bobby Lester as interim superintendent and, just this week, hired former state Education Commissioner Tony Wood to be the long-term superintendent. The interim board has also decided on the School Board election zones for use in the forthcoming September school election.

Representatives of the new and existing districts have been negotiating matters regarding their split but have not finalized agreements.

"I may be wrong, but my perception of what has happened is that everybody has been busy on many things and in many different places," Marshall said.

"And while there was hope that Jacksonville and Pulaski County would be of one mind on this, it has not happened, yet. So there is a bit of a pause. Fine. It's time to go get some lunch, have some pie, get a cup of coffee, start the conversation again -- including the Joshua intervenors -- to see what can be done to sort through these issues."

The judge told the attorneys that it is not the court's proper role nor is the court even capable of managing the details of the transition of one district into two.

"I just don't have the ability to do that," he said. "I don't know what is best and where the buses need to go and which teachers go to which schools."

Marshall said those decisions rest with Pulaski County Special School District Superintendent Jerry Guess and his staff; the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School Board and its staff; and Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key and the state Board of Education.

"The decisions those individuals make are going to touch and concern matters that are before this court," Marshall said.

His role, he said, would be at the end of the process. That would be to evaluate whether the decisions made by the others inhibit or promote the goals of the Pulaski County Special School District's desegregation plan, Plan 2000, and the achievement of unitary status -- or release from court supervision -- for the Pulaski County Special and Jacksonville/North Pulaski districts.

Among the matters being discussed by representatives of the two districts but unresolved is a plan for dividing the state licensed staff and support staff.

The Pulaski County Special district has proposed a plan that would create separate employee seniority lists for the schools in the new Jacksonville/North Pulaski district and the schools remaining in the Pulaski County Special district.

Separate employee seniority lists for the two districts would minimize widespread staffing changes in schools in the Pulaski County Special district, proponents of the plan say.

But the separate pools of employees would also prevent veteran Pulaski County Special district employees who work in Jacksonville-area schools from continuing as Pulaski County Special employees and earning Pulaski County Special district pay and benefits. And district employees working outside Jacksonville would be ineligible to use their years of seniority to bump a current Jacksonville-area employee for a desired job in Jacksonville.

Mark Burnette, an attorney for the Knight intervenors -- who have represented teachers and support staff members in the districts in the long-running desegregation suit -- told Marshall that the Pulaski County Special district's Personnel Policies Committee has formally rejected the dual seniority lists.

The committee -- made up largely of teachers elected by their peers -- will present its own plan for staffing the two districts, possibly as soon as next week, he said.

Burnette noted that staffing is an area in which the federal court monitors the Pulaski County Special district for compliance with its desegregation plan. But he said it is premature for any staffing plan for the two districts to go to Marshall for review because no one knows what the racial makeup of the staffs in the two districts will be.

Walker told Marshall that "we may have been sold a bill of goods" regarding the benefits of forming a new Jacksonville/North Pulaski school district.

He said the Joshua intervenors were led to believe that the separate district would make Jacksonville eligible for state funding that could be used to improve aging school buildings so that Jacksonville schools would be comparable to new schools elsewhere in the Pulaski County Special district. He questioned how that would come about if state funding does not materialize.

Wilson, an attorney for the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district, told the judge that the new district needs to be a party in the lawsuit and no longer have to rely on the Pulaski County Special district "to tell our story" in the case.

Marshall said the new district will be a separate party in the case once the detachment occurs next year. But in the meantime, the judge wondered "how can part of one party be a party?" in the lawsuit.

The judge asked all the parties to submit written arguments on the issue to him before the next May 19 status conference in the case.

"I'll scratch my head ... about the proper role and status of the new district," Marshall told Wilson. "If I don't file an order before the status conference, I'll rule from the bench."

Metro on 04/18/2015

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