The tentatively approved settlement in the Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit does more than phase out state desegregation money - it will change all the rules for the longtime interdistrict student-transfer programs in the three districts, including the Little Rock magnet schools.

The proposed settlement was negotiated by attorneys for the state, districts and intervening parties. It was tentatively approved by U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. on Nov. 22.

The agreement that would end $65.8 million a year in desegregation aid in 2018 is scheduled to be the subject of a Jan. 13-14 fairness hearing before the judge makes any decision on its final approval.

The tentative settlement states that no new student applications will be accepted for either the six magnet schools or for the majority-to-minority interdistrict student-transfer program that enables students to transfer from a district in which their race is in the majority to a district and school where their race is in the minority.

Currently enrolled students in the magnet schools may remain in them until they complete all grades, according to the tentative settlement. Current students in the majority-to-minority transfer program may remain in the district in which they now attend school until high school graduation.

A relatively small number of students who are not now in magnet schools or the transfer program would still be able to transfer across district lines to attend school - but they would have to exercise a “legal transfer” process that is authorized in state law but has not been used much in Pulaski County in recent years.

Stephen Jones, an attorney for the North Little Rock School District, said the caps on the number of interdistrict student transfers to magnet and other schools are the product of compromise.

The North Little Rock district wanted to “keep the doors open” for transfer students, Jones said.

But the Pulaski County Special district, which is trying to remove itself from the state’s fiscal distress program and raise money to build new schools, wanted to restrict transfers out of that district as a way to stabilize its enrollment, he said.

“This is just a middle ground that we were able to negotiate that accommodated our interests and at the same time accommodated the Pulaski County Special School District’s interest in limiting their exposure to student loss,” Jones said.

The tentatively approved agreement would permit up to 30 students to transfer from the Pulaski County Special district to the Little Rock School District each year to attend magnet schools or other schools.

Pulaski County Special also would approve up to 30 students to transfer each year to the North Little Rock district. In some years, more than 30 students could transfer to accommodate students with siblings, but no more than 150 students can transfer to each district over five years.

Pulaski County Special could, but would not be required to, accept transfer students from Little Rock and North Little Rock.

Additionally, the Little Rock and North Little Rock districts would allow transfers to each other’s districts - 30 each per year, with some flexibility to allow siblings to transfer together. But again, no more than 150 student transfers would be allowed per district over five years.

All those transfers would be done using the “legal transfer”process permitted by Arkansas Code Annotated 3-18-316.

Legal transfer students have to be approved by the school board of the sending district and the school board of the receiving district.

The state aid for a legal transfer student follows the student to the receiving district. Local tax revenue does not follow the student to the receiving district, however. And legal transfer students would have to provide their own transportation to school unless the districts choose to provide it.

Jones said the North Little Rock district wanted assurances of at least 50 students from the Pulaski County Special district, but the county district’s position was “If we don’t take any of your students and send you 30, then that gets you a net of 50.

“That’s how we got to that number,” Jones said. “It’s just a negotiated number. If it was up to North Little Rock, we would have open choice and the kids could go to whatever district they wanted to,” he said.

Jones said the Pulaski County Special district’s position heavily weighed upon the potential for Pulaski County Special students to also transfer under the state’s revised School Choice Act of 2013 to surrounding districts outside Pulaski County - such as Bryant, Cabot, Sheridan, Mayflower and others.

Both the Pulaski County Special and Little Rock districts earlier this year exercised an exemption clause in the School Choice Act because of their involvement in a federal school desegregation lawsuit.As a result, the districts do not send or accept School Choice Act transfer students from districts outside the county.

“They are looking at it from an economic point of view,” Jones said of the Pulaski County Special district’s efforts to retain students and the state funding for those students.

The proposed settlement would enable some North Little Rock students to transfer to Little Rock to attend magnet schools. The proposal also allows Little Rock students to transfer to North Little Rock schools, which they have previously not been permitted to do under existing majority-to-minority program.

The majority-to-minority student-transfer program and the six special-program magnet schools in the Little Rock district - Booker, Carver, Gibbs and Williams elementaries, Horace Mann Middle School and Parkview High - were established in the late 1980s to promote voluntary racial desegregation in Pulaski County’s three school districts.

Although the number of students participating in those programs has dropped off in recent years, the programs are considered well-used and successful.

In 2012-13, a total of 3,428 students from all three Pulaski County school districts were enrolled in the six magnet schools - 1,072 of them from North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special school districts.

Another 1,723 students crossed district lines to attend schools in a Pulaski County district different from the district in which they lived as the result of the majority-to-minority transfer program.

Little Rock Superintendent Dexter Suggs said the special-program magnet schools in his district may lose some of their interdistrict features as the result of the proposed settlement. But those schools and their programs in the arts, and math and sciences will be retained, he said.

“Our magnet program will continue. We will not lose the integrity of the programs,” Suggs said. “We are actually looking to improve the magnet program,” he said, adding that he expects possible enhancements to be identified within the month.

Suggs, who became the Little Rock superintendent in July, said he wants to keep and promote the magnet schools as a choice option for families.

“We want our magnet program population to increase,” Suggs said and noted that the schools will be featured in a future marketing campaign to the public.

“If they can grow from 15 [percent] to 25 percent at each school, that would be great,” he said about enrollment.

The academic themes at the schools won’t change, Suggs said. Nor will the racial guidelines for the schools. The magnet schools are supposed to have a racial makeup of 50 percent black students and 50 percent white and other races/ ethnicities.

The magnet schools will be populated by students from across the district and will not draw from a defined attendance zone, as is practice for other schools in the district.

Suggs has scheduled a meeting Tuesday with the principals of the six magnet schools to brainstorm ways to grow and improve the schools.

One change he said he will propose is that students who are enrolled in magnet schools and complete the top grade in those schools be given first priority for enrollment at the next level of magnet schools.

Pupils who finish at Booker Arts Magnet Elementary School, for example, would have a greater opportunity to continue in the arts program at Horace Mann Arts and Sciences Magnet Middle School and Parkview Arts and Sciences Magnet High.

Currently, students in one magnet school have no greater chance of attending the next level of magnet school than any other student who applies for a special program school.

Suggs also said he wants to include Dunbar Middle School’s gifted and talented program in the magnet program but eliminate other “magnet” labels at schools in the district.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/09/2013