Pulaski County Special School District Superintendent Jerry Guess is the final decision-maker on desegregation-related matters, including most staffing issues in the not-yet independent Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
"Long story short on desegregation issues -- those areas that still remain under court supervision [and are under] the clear agreement of the parties ... is that Dr. Guess is the captain of the ship," said U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr.
"He has the last word," the judge said. "He has the veto on any matter that touches or concerns the county district's efforts to reach unitary status on the remaining areas of staffing, facilities, discipline and academic achievement."
Marshall clarified Guess' role at an afternoon status conference with attorneys for the Pulaski County Special and Jacksonville/North Pulaski school districts and for the black students known as the Joshua intervenors in the long-running federal school desegregation lawsuit.
The Pulaski County Special district and the Joshua intervenors had been in a dispute with the Jacksonville district's attorneys over Jacksonville's plan to hire a white candidate for assistant superintendent over a black candidate who received a slightly higher score from an interview committee. Guess overruled the hiring of the white candidate.
During Thursday's conference, Marshall cautioned leaders of the new Jacksonville district against "second-guessing," "nibbling" and "slippage" on what he called the Pulaski County Special's "productive" efforts toward meeting its desegregation obligations and winning release from court monitoring.
Marshall held off on any decision Thursday on a proposed agreement between the Pulaski County Special and Jacksonville/North Pulaski district on how the two districts will divide assets, liabilities and other responsibilities between now and when Jacksonville/North Pulaski detaches from the Pulaski Count Special district.
That proposed 15-page agreement, signed off on earlier by district and state leaders, calls for the Jacksonville district's precedent-setting detachment to occur next July 1.
State Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, the lead attorney for the Joshua intervenors, told Marshall that he was not involved in the negotiations between the districts on the detachment agreement and that he wanted time to submit a written brief to the judge listing his concerns and objections to its terms.
He said those objections deal, in part, with the Pulaski County Special and Jacksonville/North Pulaski's selection of sites, architects and construction managers without taking into consideration the desegregation implications.
Marshall also had several questions for attorneys about the agreement, including whether it was necessary for him to act on all of the agreement or just the provisions dealing with desegregation matters.
And Marshall wanted to know which district had the decision-making authority -- based on the agreement -- in different scenarios, including the hypothetical hiring of a principal for a Jacksonville school during this school year, and the development of school construction and renovation plans.
Nearly all of Thursday's conference dealt with the separation of the Jacksonville district from the larger Pulaski County Special district.
Voters in Jacksonville and north Pulaski County voted overwhelmingly in September to carve their own public school district out of the Pulaski County Special district.
The Arkansas Board of Education in November ordered the establishment of the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district, a 100-square-mile district that will serve approximately 4,000 students. State leaders decided that the new district will remain part of the Pulaski County Special district for up to two years while officials plan for the division of employees, assets and debts.
The district's detachment has become an issue in federal court because the Pulaski County Special district and the new Jacksonville/North Pulaski district are subject to federal court monitoring for their compliance with the Pulaski County Special district's 2000 desegregation plan.
The districts must correct inequities in staffing, student discipline, student achievement and the conditions of school buildings to be declared unitary and released from court monitoring.
Last month, Walker objected to the Jacksonville/North Pulaski interim School Board's hiring of Bobby E. Lester to be assistant superintendent for human resources and support services.
Lester, the son of the district's now former interim Superintendent Bobby G. Lester, was selected for the job over Janice Walker, an elementary school principal who received a slightly higher rating from an interview committee.
Tony Wood, who became the Jacksonville district's superintendent on July 1, recommended to the Jacksonville board the hiring of the younger Lester. Wood sent a letter to the interim School Board explaining that he was personally familiar with the younger Lester's work and that the younger Lester had experience with federal programs at the Arkansas Department of Education.
The younger Lester is white, and Janice Walker is black.
Guess declined to approve the younger Lester's hiring, saying it would be inconsistent with the Pulaski County Special district's practices and efforts to comply with its 2000 desegregation plan.
He told Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key, his boss, that hiring the younger Lester "would negatively impact PCSSD's efforts to achieve unitary status in staffing." Key, who accepted Guess' decision, acts as the School Board for the state-controlled Pulaski County Special district and, as such, is Guess' direct supervisor and employer.
On Thursday, Marshall noted that the younger Lester had declined to take the assistant superintendent's position, making the matter moot.
In emphasizing that Jacksonville and Pulaski County Special are part of one administrative unit and subject to Guess' authority on desegregation-related matters, the judge said he recognized that the new district has worked long and hard to establish the new school system and that there is great enthusiasm about it.
But, Marshall said, "the world did not begin" with the formation of the new district and that there is a long history preceding it. As part of the Pulaski County Special district, the new Jacksonville district "is part of an adjudged constitutional violator" that has been putting in place policies and practices "that are bearing fruit" in regard to achieving unitary status.
"Those things need to be maintained as opposed to being grumbled about, second-guessed and quibbled over," Marshall told the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district leaders.
Scott Richardson and Patrick Wilson are attorneys for the new district. They questioned whether Jacksonville district leaders have the authority to develop and submit a master facilities plan and a state-aid application for new and renovated school buildings, both of which are due to the state early next year in order to receive funds in 2017-19.
Richardson said Marshall's ruling about Guess has ramifications beyond the narrow issue of selecting an assistant superintendent and that the judge appeared to be saying that Guess' authority over the Jacksonville district was total.
"That is totally misrepresenting my ruling," Marshall responded.
Richardson corrected his statement to say Guess' authority was over desegregation-related matters.
Later, Marshall asked Allen Roberts of Camden, an attorney for the Pulaski County Special district, about who is responsible for the planning on modernizing old school buildings in Jacksonville.
Roberts said the Pulaski County Special district would give the new district all of the help it can but that the Jacksonville district has to make the decisions and submit the applications for the schools that would not be built until after July 1, when the new district is operating on its own.
Richardson added that the state won't make a decision on the facilities aid until 2017, nor would ground be broken on a new building before that time.
Marshall told the attorneys that the detachment agreement that details the sale of 10 schools to the Jacksonville district, as well as the division of computers and buses, "puts much more flesh on the bone" than an earlier operating agreement and is much more of a road map to the separation of the two systems. The new agreement gives greater responsibility to the new district, he said.
Richardson compared the agreement to two buckets of authority with more and more decision-making responsibility flowing over time into the Jacksonville bucket.
Marshall asked whether the federal court has to approve the agreement at all for it to go into effect. He said he is not equipped to decide how to divide up iPads computer tablets but is very concerned about ongoing efforts to meet desegregation obligations in areas such as staffing and facilities.
Marshall granted Walker's request for time to submit a written brief on the detachment agreement. That will be due Aug. 31, and responses from the two districts are due Sept. 4. The judge said the decisions are needed sooner rather than later, so one eye must be kept on the clock.
Also, to make the quarterly status conferences in the desegregation case more productive, Marshall said he will begin setting the agendas for them.
The Donaldson Academy at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Philander Smith College are on the agenda for the Dec. 16 conference. The Pulaski County Special district is paying for the academy to aid its high school students in their preparation for college.
Facilities in the Pulaski County Special and Jacksonville districts will also be a topic at the Dec. 16 hearing. The judge asked to see a rough draft of what will be the Jacksonville district's facilities master plan that it must submit to the state by Feb. 1.
Marshall said he has grown weary of the fussing among the attorneys about who was and was not included in their various meetings. The judge directed the representatives of the two districts and the Joshua intervenors to meet together at least once a month, starting in September.
A Section on 08/21/2015