The Arkansas Board of Education on Thursday denied appeals from three families seeking to transfer their children out of the Forrest City and Blytheville school districts and into the Palestine-Wheatley and Armorel school systems for the new school year.
The Palestine-Wheatley and Armorel districts denied the initial transfer requests on the grounds that the students' home districts -- Blytheville and Forrest City -- had exempted themselves from participating in Public School Choice Act transfers.
State law permits students to transfer to schools in districts in which they do not reside.
But the law also permits districts to exempt themselves from participating in the student-transfer program if the student-transfer law puts a district into conflict with a federal court desegregation order or federal court-approved desegregation plan.
Act 560 of 2015, which amended previous school choice law, specifically requires a district claiming an exemption to immediately submit proof to the Arkansas Department of Education of a "genuine conflict" from a federal court.
In response to questions about the law, the Arkansas attorney general's office issued a nonbinding opinion last month saying that the law requires submission of proof, but does not call for the Education Department to verify that proof or give guidance on what would constitute sufficient proof of the conflict.
The Education Board denied several student-transfer appeals last week because the resident districts had claimed a conflict between the transfer law and desegregation cases involving their districts.
On Thursday, Jess Askew, an attorney for the Coppedge family of Blytheville, argued that the Blytheville district doesn't have an active desegregation case despite claiming so in a letter to the state. The Coppedge family wants to send their child to the Armorel district.
Askew presented a partial transcript of a 2013 federal court hearing in which he asked Blytheville Superintendent Richard Atwill about Blytheville's desegregation efforts.
Atwill told Askew in that hearing that he didn't know whether the man listed as the district's attorney in its desegregation case was alive or dead. Atwill also was quoted in the transcript as saying he didn't know when the district had last reported to a federal court on desegregation matters and didn't know what remedies to segregation were left to implement in the district.
Askew told the Education Board that it is his contention in a case now pending before the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis that the Blytheville desegregation case was closed in 1978 by a federal judge.
He urged the board to approve his client's transfer request to Armorel because the Blytheville district doesn't have a legal conflict with the transfer law and, as a result, the state board wasn't being asked to interpret a desegregation order or verify a school district exemption claim.
"Blytheville is operating a charade," Askew said, adding that the district "is playing a game" and "hoping you won't exercise your judgment."
Board member Vicki Saviers of Little Rock questioned what incentive school districts have to pursue unitary status or release from federal court supervision of their desegregation efforts. She said the their failure to do so is unfair to parents.
Jennifer Davis, an attorney for the Education Department, advised the board against going against the advice of the attorney general. She said the desegregation obligations tend to fall off a district's radar after many years.
Education Commissioner Johnny Key said the state Education Department will now routinely monitor districts for their efforts to achieve unitary status from the federal courts.
Education Board member Jay Barth of Little Rock asked if it would be considered arbitrary to grant appeals to families Thursday after denying appeals last week. Davis said that the individual cases are different.
Board member Diane Zook said the board is subject to a lawsuit regardless of whether it decided in favor of the parent or the Blytheville district.
The board denied the appeal in a 5-4 vote with board Chairman Toyce Newton of Crossett casting the deciding vote. Those voting to deny were Barth, Joe Black, Susan Chambers and Brett Williamson. Those favoring the appeal were Zook, Saviers, Mireya Reith and Charisse Dean.
The board voted 7-1 to sustain the transfer denial for the Erica Goodall family, which sought to transfer her second- and fifth-grade children from Forrest City to Palestine-Wheatley where her two older children already attend school and are thriving.
"Please consider what I have to go through," Goodall, a cook, told the board. "My younger babies ask me every day what school they will go to. It's hard and it's sad," she said.
Zook cast the dissenting vote as she did in the 7-1 vote upholding the denial of the Criss family that also sought a transfer from Forrest City to Palestine-Wheatley.
Metro on 08/14/2015