Friday is the statewide deadline for students to apply for 2015-16 transfers to schools in districts in which they don't live -- but at least 15 districts say they cannot legally participate in the transfer program.
That will keep students from crossing district lines in or out of some of the state's larger districts, including Pulaski County Special, El Dorado, Hot Springs and Texarkana.
"We're still under the supervision of federal court," Pulaski County Special Superintendent Jerry Guess said about restricting student transfers.
His district is a party in a 32-year-old Pulaski County federal school desegregation lawsuit and parts of the district's operation -- facilities, student discipline and staffing -- are monitored by the court for compliance with the district's Plan 2000 regarding desegregation.
"I tell people that once we get unitary it would be my recommendation that PCSSD participate in the School Choice Act," Guess said. "But I think we have to achieve unitary status in all areas. Until then, I think we have to maintain the current posture" on School Choice Act transfers.
Act 560 of the recently completed 2015 legislative session made some revisions in the state's existing Public School Choice Act.
The student application deadline, for example, is now May 1 of each year rather than June 1. And the families of students seeking to attend school in another district need apply by that date only to the nonresident district. They are no longer responsible for notifying the resident district of the transfer application. That task is left to the nonresident district.
The revised law, the Public School Choice Act of 2015, continues to permit a school district to claim an exemption from participating in interdistrict student transfers if the district is subject to a court desegregation order or a desegregation plan.
New language added to the existing law requires a district that claims an exemption to "immediately submit proof from a federal court to the [state] Department of Education that the school district has a genuine conflict under an active desegregation order or active court-approved desegregation plan."
Fifteen of the state's 237 districts are listed by the Arkansas Department of Education as having claimed an exemption to the law because of conflicts between the thrust of the law and a school district desegregation court order. The 15 districts are:
• Hot Springs School District
• Fountain Lake School District
• Jessieville School District
• Lakeside School District (Garland County)
• Mountain Pine School District
• Lake Hamilton School District
• Forrest City School District
• Camden Fairview School District
• El Dorado School District
• Hope School District
• Pulaski County Special School District
• Junction City School District
• Lafayette County School District
• Blytheville School District
• Brinkley School District
Each school district's letter notifying Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key of its exemption claim, as well as related court documents, is available for viewing on the "School Choice" link on the Arkansas Department of Education website's home page: .arkansased.gov.
Additionally, Nancy Anderson, superintendent of the Cutter-Morning Star School District, said Monday that her district also should be on the state list and that she would work with the Education Department today to get her district on the list. That would put all seven Garland County school districts on the list.
D. Scott Hickam, a Hot Springs attorney, said Monday that the Garland County districts -- with the exception of Hot Springs -- last year asked a federal court to terminate a 1992 desegregation agreement among the districts that used race as a criteria for interdistrict student transfers.
That agreement incorporated the terms of an older state school choice law -- Act 609 of 1989 -- that was declared unconstitutional in 2012. That older law and the Garland County agreement said no student could transfer to a nonresident district if the enrollment percentage for the student's race exceeded the percentage in the student's resident district.
Hickam said the U.S. District Court recently denied the request from the six districts to be released from the settlement agreement. That decision is now being appealed to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, he said. In the meantime, the Garland County districts are bound by the court's orders in regard to interdistrict student transfers and must use the terms of the old law and not the Public School Choice Act of 2015.
"The Garland County school districts seem to be operating under a unique set of rules, unique to the whole state," Hickam said. "It's confusing to parents. You have superintendents telling some parents, 'Sorry, but your child cannot attend this school because of their race.' That is difficult for them to say."
Gary Newton, executive director of the Arkansas Learns organization that advocates for parental choice for their children's schools, on Monday didn't dispute the obligation of the Garland County districts to follow the existing court orders regarding student transfers to other districts.
But Newton questioned whether court orders in other districts that are taking exemptions are "truly conflicting" with the requirements of Act 560.
"Our encouragement all along has been for any parent in a district that says it is exempted to go ahead and make application to the district they want their child to transfer to," Newton said. "That puts the burden on the district to demonstrate that their court order is conflicting with that type of school choice."
Kimberly Friedman, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Education, said Monday that there is no date set in law for school districts to submit proof this year of court orders that exempt them from the student transfer law. The district must "immediately" submit the proof to the agency.
"Our goal is to place the school districts' submissions on the website as soon as possible, usually within one day of receipt," Friedman said and added that she was unaware of the agency rejecting any district's claim for an exemption.
"We are examining whether we have the legal authority to approve or deny the submissions," she said. " The law only requires school districts to submit proof. A past attorney general's opinion advised the state Board of Education to not attempt to interpret federal court orders."
The revised law requires the nonresident school district to notify a student by July 1 whether the student transfer will be permitted for the coming school year. School districts do not have to add staff members or classrooms to accommodate student transfer requests. However, a nonresident district can deny a transfer request on the basis of a lack of capacity only if the district has reached at least 90 percent of the maximum authorized student population in a program, class, grade or school building.
The 15 or 16 districts claiming the exemption from the School Choice Act for the coming 2015-16 school year is a drop compared with 21 for this current school year and 23 the previous year.
The districts that took the exemptions for this year are Arkadelphia, Blytheville, Brinkley, Camden-Fairview, Cutter-Morning Star, Dollarway, El Dorado, Forrest City, Fountain Lake, Helena-West Helena, Hope, Hot Springs, Jessieville, Junction City, Lafayette County, Lake Hamilton, Lakeside (Garland County), Marvell-Elaine, Pulaski County Special, South Conway County and Texarkana.
In the 2013-14 school year, a total of 23 districts claimed the exemption. Those that claimed an exemption that year that did not follow with a claim for this school year were the Little Rock, Mountain Pine, Lakeside in Chicot County and Stephens school districts. The Stephens district has been closed. The Little Rock District in January 2014 reached a settlement in its desegregation lawsuit and is no longer under court supervision.
The North Little Rock School District is actively advertising for students to apply for interdistrict transfers to the district using the School Choice Act of 2015. Billboards, radio and television commercials and fliers have been used to notify parents in outlying areas of the transfer option.
As of Monday, some 30 applications School Choice Act applications had been made to the district.
Micheal Stone, director of student services for the North Little Rock School District, said the law opens up choice for parents and gives the North Little Rock district a way to increase its state funding and offset the coming end to state desegregation aid.
"This is an avenue where we can offer something positive for the families who choose to come to us because we feel like we have a good product," Stone said. "At the same time it offers more revenue for our district."
A Section on 04/28/2015