Attorneys argued Monday on the first day of a federal court hearing on possible unitary status for the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District over the role student poverty should play in that decision.
Scott Richardson, who represents the 4,000-student district, told U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. that over the next several days there will be testimony on the district's efforts and interventions to comply with the Plan 2000 desegregation plan and to identify and address the needs of individual students to promote academic achievement.
"You won't hear about any exclusions of any students from any part of the curriculum," Richardson told the judge about testimony to come from district representatives. "You won't hear about rules that only apply to one type of student. You won't hear any discipline that applies to only one type of student.
"You will hear about disproportionality in achievement. You will hear about disproportionality in discipline," Richardson said.
He added that the testimony to come will highlight how that disproportionality among students is the result of family poverty -- not the race of the students.
"All of the educators will confirm in all schools you have a significantly higher number, [or] percentage, of African American students of poverty than you have non-African American students of poverty, and that drives disparity. Poverty, they will all testify, too, is a shorthand for impediments to learning ... and when you have the gap in poverty, you can expect to see the gaps in other ways because those students are struggling more."
Austin Porter Jr., an attorney for the district's Black students who are known as the McClendon intervenors, told the judge that children who are growing up in poverty are capable of learning if the adults are dedicated to educating them.
"It appears that Mr. Richardson and the Jacksonville district are taking the route that Plan 2000 is too difficult," Porter said, "and now everything is going to be placed on poverty as the explanation as to why African American children still are lagging behind their white counterparts in the area of academics.
"Also, your honor, the same evidence is also going to demonstrate that African American students are being disciplined at rates disproportionate to their numbers" in the Jacksonville district where about 52% of students last school year were Black.
Porter said he "understands" why Jacksonville wants to get away from the provisions of Plan 2000.
"The numbers are not on their side," he said, adding that the district is on Level 4 of the state's five-level accountability system, which calls for a high level of state intervention.
The McClendon intervenors are challenging the Jacksonville district's assertions that it has complied with its desegregation obligations in the areas of student discipline, academics, staffing incentives and self-monitoring of desegregation efforts and, as a result, is not entitled to be released from court monitoring of the district in those areas of operation.
Marshall, the presiding judge in the nearly 38-year-old school desegregation lawsuit, is holding the hearing to determine whether the Jacksonville district has met its desegregation obligations this month after holding a similar hearing in July on whether the Pulaski County Special District has met its very similar desegregation mandates.
Both the Pulaski County Special and Jacksonville/North Pulaski district -- which was carved out of the Pulaski County Special district -- are obligated to substantially comply with the terms of Plan 2000 and subsequent court directives.
Jacksonville/North Pulaski was established in 2014 as a separate school district with the condition that it must meet the Pulaski County Special district's desegregation obligations. The Jacksonville district was created in November 2014 but didn't begin to operate independently of the Pulaski County Special system until July 2016.
Unlike the Pulaski Special court hearing in July, the current hearing is not expected to delve much into the issue of equitable school facilities. That's because Marshall ruled in 2018 on how the new district -- Jacksonville/North Pulaski -- is to proceed with the construction of new campuses, a process that is underway but not complete. The judge, however, is planning to take a day this month to tour some of the Jacksonville's newest and oldest campuses.
In his opening statement, Richardson said that in the years since Plan 2000 and its accompanying education plan were written, the focus for academic remediation has moved from working with blocks of students to using data and initiatives to target individual students to help them overcome barriers.
He said educators aren't satisfied with the status but are working to move it forward.
Tiffany Bone, one of the district's two assistant superintendent and who oversees secondary education, special education and athletics, testified Monday about the district's efforts to motivate support staff employees with bachelor's degrees, particularly Black employees, to become teachers.
The district's Grow Your Own program enables the employees to begin classroom teaching -- at a teacher salary -- while simultaneously taking necessary classes to obtain a state teaching license. The district will ultimately reimburse the employees for tuition costs.
Tammy Knowlton, the district's human resources director, testified about a different tuition reimbursement program, one that enables people who have enough college credits in a core academic area and who hold a one-year state-issued emergency teaching permit to proceed to get a standard state teaching license.
In 2019, the Jacksonville district reported to the state that it had 317 employees, 229 of whom were white, 81 were Black and eight were of other races. In the 2017-18 school year, the district had 268 white employees, 68 Black employees and eight others.
Porter questioned the two about the low numbers of Black candidates who have gone through the tuition-reimbursement programs and stayed with the district. He also asked about the use of signing bonuses to increase the numbers of Black teachers in the district, particularly in primary grades and core academic courses in the secondary schools.
Bone also testified about academic initiatives underway since her 2017 employment when she, Superintendent Bryan Duffie and other leaders were challenged by a student body in which as many as 80% of students were under performing and needed interventions. To that end, she said, the district has incorporated nationally known programs to identify and address academic and behavior issues. She said those "big rocks" of the district are Response to Intervention, Professional Learning Communities and Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports.
Bone also described how the district has modified its plans when initiatives don't work. A lack of student attendance in summer and after-school academic programs pushed the district to put remediation programs into the regular school day, she said.
"Titan Time" is remediation time within the school day at the elementary schools, she said as an example. At the high school, the master scheduled was altered to create five 75-minute class periods a day for students, with students attending math and literacy classes daily and social studies and science classes on alternate days.