Differences in the settlement of a 31-year-old federal school desegregation lawsuit will require the intervention of a federal magistrate to resolve, attorneys for the Pulaski County Special School District and the Joshua intervenors said Monday in a U.S. District Court filing.
The joint request asked that U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. assign a portion of the case for federal mediation, saying that they were able to “reach tentative agreements, but have some disputes” that remain.
The settlement of the 1989 Pulaski County desegregation case was negotiated last month by attorneys for the state; the Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special school districts; the Joshua intervenors; and the class of all employees in the three school districts known as the Knight intervenors.
In the preliminary settlement, attorneys for the Pulaski County Special district and the Joshua intervenors were charged with resolving their differences in how the district would achieve unitary status in nine key areas. The Little Rock and North Little Rock districts have already been declared unitary, or desegregated.
Marshall initially issued a Dec. 2 deadline to Pulaski County Special and the Joshua intervenors to either work out their differences amongst themselves or to refer the matter to a federal magistrate. That deadline was extended to Monday after both sides said they felt they could resolve more issues if given extra time.
In May 2011, U.S. District Judge Brian S. Miller ruled that the district was not desegregated in the areas of student assignment; advanced placement and gifted education programs; student discipline; school facilities; scholarships; special education; staffing; student achievement; and desegregation monitoring.
Pulaski County Special attorney Allen Roberts said recently that he was confident the parties could agree on at least five of the issues before the second cutoff date.
Monday’s court filing, however, reported that only two areas - student assignment, and advanced placement and honors programs - were able to be resolved. The court document asked that the district be released from federal oversight on these two measures with the exception that it continue “general implementation of these areas” until the court enters an order with respect to the remaining obligations.
John Walker, the attorney representing black students in Pulaski County’s three school districts who are known as the Joshua intervenors, said Monday that he wasn’t surprised that only two issues were resolved. He added that he had not been “hopeful that we got any more than we got.”
Roberts said he would have “loved to have had another one resolved, but we were running out of time.”
Walker is confident, however, that future negotiations will bear more fruit.
“These are difficult issues, and they take time to address. We have a new administration now. The other administrators are gone, and their resolve was sometimes conflicting,” he said.
Walker said the current Pulaski County Special superintendent, Jerry Guess, has recognized that the school district has not made sufficient progress and is determined to achieve unitary status in all areas on a more satisfactory timeline.
“I believe that he will do what he says. He is the first one to make that specific of a commitment in several years,” Walker said.
Walker pointed out that a former Pulaski County Special deputy superintendent, Linda Remele, is now leading an effort opposing a portion of the settlement that bars any new school districts in Pulaski County other than a new Jacksonville school district. Remele and other members of the Sherwood Public Education Foundation formed earlier this year to push for Sherwood’s own school district.
The group held a news conference last week, saying that its members do not want to derail the desegregation settlement but wanted to express “our surprise, and our extreme disappointment and dismay, over the unequal treatment of the communities in the Pulaski County Special School District to pursue a separate, community-based school district.”
On Monday night, the Sherwood City Council passed a resolution to submit a written objection to the federal court about the proposed settlement preventing new school districts other than Jacksonville.
Earlier, Walker said the three biggest roadblocks to achieving unitary status are facilities, student achievement and discipline. He declined, however, to go into detail about what it would take to reach an agreement.
Roberts said in a previous interview that there was simply too much to do in too little time to equalize the condition of the district’s decaying facilities.
He was more hopeful on a quick resolution of the overall agreement after Monday’s filing, however.
“I feel like we’re very close, if not already there. They are probably in the shape that they could be handed back to the judge pretty quickly,” Roberts said. “I think there will continue to be good cooperation. My thoughts are that we’ve got to wait to see if we do get a magistrate appointed. Then we’ve got to get with the magistrate to see how he wants us to proceed.”
Roberts added that he thinks a magistrate would send the two parties back to the drawing board for more negotiations, then ask that they report back to him for a progress update.
Under the proposed settlement agreement involving all three districts, the state would pay a total of $65.8 million a year through the end of the 2017-18 school year in desegregation aid. In the final year, the money can be used only for construction and renovation of academic facilities.
The agreement also calls for the state to pay $250,000 to each of the three districts to reimburse them for their legal fees, and $500,000 to the Joshua intervenors and $75,000 to the Knight intervenors for legal fees.
Marshall has given his preliminary stamp of approval on the settlement, but a final ruling will not be made until after a Jan. 13-14 “fairness hearing.”
In November, Marshall required that the parties to the case publicize the terms of the agreement and to publicly notify individual members of the Joshua class or their attorneys that they are entitled to address the judge with evidence and objections about the proposed agreement at the January hearing.
So far two letters have been received from individuals opposing the settlement. One was from parent Stefanie Moore, who said the proposed agreement’s limits on interdistrict student transfers into Little Rock’s six magnet schools would hamper educational opportunities for children who live in the Pulaski County Special district.
The other, Rizelle Aaron of Jacksonville, questioned the Jacksonville community’s financial ability to support its own school district.
Objections must first be submitted in writing to the federal court by next Monday. Members of the Joshua class who have questions about the lawsuit, the settlement or the fairness hearing can put their questions in writing to Walker, the lawyer for the Joshua intervenors. His address is 1723 Broadway, Little Rock, Ark. 72206, or johnwalkeratty@ aol.com.
Members of the Knight intervenors can direct questions to their attorneys, Mark Burnette or Clayton Blackstock, 1010 W. Third St., Little Rock, Ark. 72201, or mburnette@ mitchellblackstock.com or cblackstock@ mitchellblackstock.com.
Information for this article was contributed by Jake Sandlin of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/17/2013