The Jacksonville/North Pulaski County School District is asking a federal judge to declare the 4,000-student system unitary and release it from further court oversight in the areas of student discipline, academics, staffing incentives and self-monitoring.
Scott Richardson, an attorney for the district, has submitted the motion for unitary status and an accompanying brief in support of the request to U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. in advance of an Oct. 5 court hearing on whether the district is entitled to that unitary status.
"[The district] has substantially complied with Plan 2000's requirements in these areas," Richardson wrote to the judge, referring to the provisions of the district's court-approved desegregation plan.
He added, "The Court may release [the district] from active court supervision based on a change of circumstances including compliance with the district's desegregation plan; because applying Plan 2000 prospectively is not longer equitable; and for other reasons justifying relief."
[DOCUMENT: Motion in limine » arkansasonline.com/96motion/]
"Alternatively, if the Court finds that [the district] should not be so released, JNPSD requests that Plan 2000 be modified to reflect the changed circumstances and provide a more accurate path to release from court supervision," he wrote.
Richardson also has filed a "motion in limine," asking the judge to limit the topics to be addressed and the expanse of testimony at the hearing, which is scheduled to take up to two weeks.
Attorneys for the Black students (initially known as the Joshua intervenors and more recently as the McClendon intervenors) plan to file responses to the Jacksonville district arguments in the coming days. Austin Porter Jr. heads up the attorney team that is challenging the district's compliance to desegregation commitments.
The Jacksonville/North Pulaski district hearing on unitary status comes just after the Pulaski County Special School District's three-week hearing in July on a request for unitary status. Marshall has not yet issued a decision on the unitary status of the larger district, which asked for release in the areas of equitable school facilities, student achievement, student discipline practices and self monitoring of desegregation efforts.
Both the Pulaski County Special district 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 in what has become a 37-year old federal school desegregation lawsuit.
[DOCUMENT: Motion for unitary status » arkansasonline.com/96status/]
Jacksonville/North Pulaski was established as a separate 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 court hearing in July, the upcoming hearing is not expected to delve much into the issue of equitable school facilities. That's because the judge ruled in 2018 on how the new district is to proceed with the construction of new campuses, a process that is underway but not complete.
"[The Jacksonville district] acknowledges that its facilities remain in the status established by the Court's September 20, 2018 order," Richardson wrote in the recent brief.
In regard to academics, discipline, staffing incentives and self-monitoring, the district has complied with Plan 2000, he said. And changed circumstances since Plan 2000 was adopted support the release of the district. That includes a lack of evidence of any intentional discrimination in providing education to Black students in the district.
"Whatever prior violation of the Constitution justified continuing court supervision no longer exists in [the Jacksonville district]," he wrote.
[DOCUMENT: Brief of law in support of motion for unitary status » arkansasonline.com/96brief/]
And if the school district is operating in compliance with federal law -- the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution's equal-protection clause -- it must be released from Plan 2000.
"[The Jacksonville district] is not aware of any authority for the proposition that a federal court may retain control over a school district that is operating in conformance with the Constitution."
Richardson further told the judge that research into the history of the current school desegregation lawsuit and the previous Zinnamon case regarding desegregation in the Pulaski County Special district showed "there has never been a finding of any violation of the 14th Amendment in the areas of academics or discipline.
"Quite the opposite,"Richardson wrote, adding that the only academic-related complaint in the Zinnamon case dealt with the lack of national accreditation for the Pulaski County Special district's schools that served Black students. The Pulaski County Special district responded in 1968 that it was working toward that accreditation and that its schools that served white students also did not have that national accreditation.
"Not once in the 52-year history of this case has there been a finding of any constitutional violation in the Pulaski County Special district in the areas of academics or student discipline," Richardson said of the Zinnamon and current cases.
He noted that in his previous arguments to the judge that he had said that constitutional violations in academics and discipline had been "lost in the mists of time."
"It is now clear that it was never lost," he told the judge in the latest brief. "It never existed. This indisputable legal fact bears a legal consequence: that portion of Plan 2000 that springs from something other than a violation of the federal constitution must be dismissed," he wrote.
Richardson has asked Marshall to limit the testimony of Rep. Joy Springer, D-Little Rock, in the upcoming hearing to only facts on which she has personnel knowledge and that she not testify as an expert witness. Springer is a longtime paralegal and desegregation monitor in Pulaski County area schools.
Richardson also asked that the judge limit the telephone participation of attorneys in the hearing and that the judge prohibit testimony on the issue of implicit bias and on criminal activity, arrests or other interactions of district students with the criminal-justice system.