The federal judge presiding in the long-running Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit declined Monday to take up a dispute over the configuration of school board election zones in the new Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District.
U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. told attorneys for black students known as the Joshua intervenors that their opposition to a school board election zone plan made up of five single-member zones and two at-large zones would have to be raised in a new lawsuit.
The judge's decision allows the election to move forward -- barring a new lawsuit.
The 5-2 configuration, approved earlier this year by the new district's interim School Board and the Pulaski County Election Commission, is set to be the basis for the Sept. 15 election of seven members to the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School Board.
"While there is certainly and undeniably an indirect impact or effect on all of the unitary issues by how this board is constituted and who will be the new members of the school board ... I think it is beyond the scope of this proceeding to litigate Voting Rights Act issues," Marshall said at the end of an afternoon status conference on several issues -- including the hiring of assistant superintendents, planning for new facilities for the new district and forming other new districts in Pulaski County.
"The court's view on that is that there needs to be a separate lawsuit if the Joshua intervenors or anyone wants to argue that the Voting Rights Act was violated in the design of the [election zones] for the new Jacksonville/North Pulaski board," Marshall said.
He acknowledged that under the local federal court rules he would likely be assigned any voting rights case because of its relationship to the desegregation case.
Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, and Robert Pressman of Lexington, Mass., attorneys for the Joshua intervenors, asked for Monday's conference with the judge to deal with what they described as "urgent matters related to the proposed detachment" of the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district from the Pulaski County Special School District and to efforts by both of those districts to attain unitary status and release from federal court supervision.
Walker and Pressman said the election zone plan with its mix of single-member and at-large election zones "has the potential for diluting the participation of black voters." They also said such a plan has the potential to be a violation of federal law that "forbids standards which unfairly provide a racial group 'less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.'"
The Arkansas Board of Education last November ordered the establishment of the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district after voters in the area voted overwhelmingly in support of a new district in an election last September.
The new 100-square mile district that will serve approximately 4,000 students remains for the time being under the direction of the Pulaski County Special district while officials plan the division of employees, assets and debts. Planners for the new district anticipate that it will begin operating on its own July 1, 2016.
The current interim board for the new district was appointed by the state Board of Education and has five black members and two white members. Four of the five single-member election zones in the new system have majority-white populations. The fifth zone is slightly majority black.
However, candidates running for election Sept. 15 for three of the board seats are black candidates, ensuring that those seats will be held by black members. There is a contested race between a black candidate and a white candidate for a fourth seat, making it possible that four of the seven seats will be held by board members who are black.
In a lengthy presentation to the judge, Walker also raised concerns Monday about what he called as the lack of any plans on paper for new school buildings in the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district.
He objected to what he saw as racial and gender discrimination in the new district's effort to hire a white male assistant superintendent over a black woman who received a higher score from an interviewing team.
The attorney for the Joshua intervenors also presented some data showing that the schools in the Jacksonville area referred black students -- particularly black male students -- to law enforcement agencies at far higher rates than white students.
The Pulaski County Special District and -- as a result -- the new Jacksonville district, are both under court supervision in regard to correcting inequitable staffing and student discipline practices as required by the Pulaski County Special district's desegregation plan entitled "Plan 2000." The districts must also correct the inequities in the condition of school buildings before they can be released from federal court supervision.
Walker also warned Monday that the state's recent contemplation and even seeming support of new districts in Pulaski County -- such as possible districts for the cities of Sherwood and Maumelle -- could leave the Pulaski County Special district without resources to appropriately serve remaining students, predominately black students in Wrightsville and McAlmont.
Marshall urged Scott Richardson and Patrick Wilson, who are attorneys for the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district, to "re-ignite" the conversation on facilities as soon as possible.
"The conversation needs to include [Pulaski County Special School District Superintendent Jerry Guess] and it needs to include Joshua. I know there is uncertainty but we are already into a new fiscal year and in a new school year and the new district will be on its own completely within a year, and so that conversation needs to move forward."
Walker told the judge that one of the main reasons he did not object to the formation of a new Jacksonville/North Pulaski district in a January 2014 settlement agreement in the desegregation case was because Jacksonville can qualify for millions of dollars in state funding for new school buildings that the Pulaski County Special district, a wealthier school system, can not obtain.
But he told Marshall that in the time since the settlement agreement he has not been invited to participate in any planning, nor has he seen any evidence that others are doing the planning.
"Both the Pulaski County district and the Jacksonville district remain under court supervision on facilities and we can either have that fuss sooner or later," Marshall told the attorneys for the Jacksonville system.
"Either you all are going to involve Joshua now as the planning begins and each step along the way or Joshua is going to oppose release [from court supervision] on the facility grounds and we are going to have a fight about that. So get them involved now, please."
In regard to the issue of new districts in Pulaski County or "splinter districts" carved out of the Pulaski County Special district, Marshall told Walker on Monday that he didn't think the state is contemplating any new districts in the near future and that a recent state Education Board committee study was focused on issues 10 and 15 years down the road.
The judge said the January 2014 settlement agreement as well as an agreement in the late 1990s -- both involving the state of Arkansas as a party -- protect the Pulaski County Special district's boundary lines while the Pulaski County Special district remains under federal court supervision of its desegregation efforts.
"Those are issues for another day," Marshall said to an audience that included leaders of efforts in both Sherwood and Maumelle to form districts in those cities.
"If our discussion today and in our past conferences have made any point, it is that it is very hard to break out pieces or break out new districts. I think it is about one at a time is all that everybody can handle," Marshall said.
Much of the Monday status conference between the judge and the attorneys for the Joshua intervenors, the Jacksonville/North Pulaski and the Pulaski County Special district centered on Walker's objections to the hiring by the Jacksonville/North Pulaski interim School Board of Bobby E. Lester to be assistant superintendent for human resources and support services.
Bobby E. 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 the younger Lester to the Jacksonville board. He sent a letter to that 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, who remains for the time being the supervisor of the Jacksonville district, declined to approve the younger Lester's hiring, saying that the hiring would be inconsistent with the Pulaski County Special district's practices and efforts to comply with its desegregation Plan 2000.
Guess told Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key, his boss, that he would not employ the younger Lester because "to do so 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.
Marshall told the parties that he needed more information about the staffing issue, saying that he understood that Guess was doing all he can to attain unitary status for his district and that Wood is trying to assemble a team that will guide the formation of a district that will provide a top quality education.
He asked for legal arguments as well as for facts about Pulaski County Special hiring practices in the past and whether the candidate with the top number of points from an interview team always gets the job or whether the top two candidates are ever recalled for further interviews.
The judge, who set an Aug. 3 deadline for the briefs, called hiring issues dealing with race and fairness to be very difficult issues on which courts are divided.
"It's very important that the best decision humanly possible can be made on this because of how it is going to affect the new district going forward," Marshall said.
Metro on 07/21/2015