Enrollment of Forrest City School District students by the nearby Palestine-Wheatley and Wynne systems under the state's school-choice laws does not violate Forrest City's federal desegregation order, a judge ruled this week.
The order, unless it is appealed and overturned by a higher court, enables students residing in the Forrest City district to continue to attend public schools in other districts or seek those transfers to other districts in accordance with state laws -- and not be barred by the existence of the Forrest City district's federal desegregation order.
U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson issued the order Monday granting summary judgment to the Wynne and Palestine-Wheatley districts.
The decision has the potential to affect how the Arkansas Department of Education and the Arkansas Board of Education handle appeals from parents who wish for their children who reside in a district with a standing desegregation order to transfer to schools in other districts.
There are 18 Arkansas school districts, including Forrest City, that have claimed exemptions from school-choice laws because of desegregation obligations.
The Palestine-Wheatley and Wynne districts were the defendants in a 2014 lawsuit in which the Forrest City district argued that student transfers from that district to its neighboring districts are not permissible because of Forrest City's long-standing school desegregation order.
The Forrest City district had claimed it was exempted from Arkansas' school-choice student-transfer laws that were enacted in 1989, 2004, 2013 and 2015 on the basis that it was operating under the federal court order and had not been declared desegregated and released from the court's supervision of its desegregation efforts.
The Forrest City district in its case against Palestine-Wheatley and Wynne argued against the legality of the student transfers and sought reimbursement of nearly $5 million in state aid diverted from Forrest City to the defendant districts for educating approximately 70 students a year who live within the Forrest City district boundaries.
"Defendants' acceptance [of] interdistrict transfers under the Arkansas statutes does not conflict with any desegregation order," Wilson concluded in the eight-page order.
Wilson said the focus of the Forrest City district's desegregation order -- a product of the 1969 lawsuit McKisick v. Forrest City Special School District No. 7 -- "was ensuring that plaintiff ran a school district that complied with federal law."
Wilson said that at the time the McKisick case was filed, the Forrest City district was operating a constitutionally suspect "school choice" program that had the effect of establishing segregated schools because the white students chose to not attend school with the black students.
As part of the McKisick case, the Forrest City district developed a new plan for students, staffing, bus routes and attendance zones. In 1971 the federal court ruled that proposed plan was acceptable, but retained jurisdiction over the district to deal with any problems that might arise.
Nothing happened in that case until 1990, when the Forrest City district sought approval of a magnet school program. The federal court noted at that time that it had "continuing jurisdiction for an indefinite period of time" over the "ancient case," Wilson wrote about the last activity in the McKisick case.
"McKisick does not prevent Plaintiff from participating in interdistrict transfers," Wilson said, "so long as they remain aware of their obligation to maintain a desegregated school system, and adjust accordingly.
"To the extent McKisick ordered Plaintiff to eliminate all vestiges of 'freedom of choice,' the orders did so with respect to intradistrict transfers only," Wilson said in reference to student movement among schools within the Forrest City district boundaries.
"Additionally, McKisick placed obligations on Plaintiff only; Defendants were not involved in McKisick," the judge wrote. "Accordingly, Forrest City has failed to show McKisick conflicts with any of the Arkansas School Choice Acts, or that Defendants violated McKisick or any other federal law."
Among attorneys, reaction to the judge's order was mixed Tuesday.
Kendra Clay, counsel for the Arkansas Department of Education, said Tuesday that she and her staff were aware of the order and would be reviewing it.
Sam Jones of Little Rock said he and co-counsel Brad Beavers of Forrest City are in the midst of preparing a recommendation to the Forrest City School Board on whether to appeal Wilson's decision to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, seek a remedy in state court or take some other action.
That recommendation on how to proceed could be made to the School Board later this month, he said.
"We're all disappointed. We're all a little bit surprised," Jones said of Wilson's decision.
Attorneys for the Palestine-Wheatley and Wynne school districts had a different view.
"Our client is very pleased with Judge Wilson's ruling, especially the clear ruling that the ancient McKisick desegregation case does not prohibit or conflict with school choice in the modern era," Jess Askew III of Little Rock, an attorney for the Palestine-Wheatley School District, said Tuesday.
The Palestine-Wheatley district had enrolled only fifth-through-12th-grade students who sought transfers from the state-labeled, academically distressed middle and high schools in Forrest City as permitted by the Arkansas Opportunity Choice Act.
"Now it appears the way is clear for children from any school in Forrest City to transfer under the interdistrict provisions of the state's School Choice Act -- kindergarten through 12th grade," Askew said.
He also praised Wilson for differentiating between using school choice as a dodge to desegregation remedies in the 1960s and modern school choice under current Arkansas law.
"The two are very different," he said.
"It's important that the McKisick case is still pending in federal court and Judge Wilson found that there is no conflict between any obligation in that case and public school choice," Askew said.
"I think that means that the mere fact that there is a desegregation order that may be in existence and may not have yet been dismissed is not itself a bar or prohibition on school choice. Instead, it is necessary to see whether the desegregation order actually conflicts with school choice."
Donn Mixon of Jonesboro, an attorney for the Wynne School District, said his clients -- particularly Wynne Superintendent Carl Easley -- were very happy to see the case dismissed by Wilson.
Mixon said the Wynne district was frustrated by Forrest City's intransigence.
"Wynne had followed every version of the school choice laws as it was written. The law would be changed. The district always followed the law but no matter what the provisions of the choice act were, Forrest City just took the approach that that 'ancient order' as Judge Wilson called it prevented people from transferring."
Mixon also predicted that this week's court decision is likely to have "a ripple effect" for other pending and expected lawsuits from parents whose requests for transfers for their children have been turned down in other districts based on old desegregation cases.
"The state of Arkansas made the decision years ago that we are going to have open choice in Arkansas," Mixon said. "It had gotten to the point where students and families with money made their choice. They just moved.
"When you get in a situation where you have got grades five through 12 in academic distress -- like Forrest City does -- it just meant those kids in those grades who didn't have enough money to move were trapped," Mixon said. "This settles that. They can leave."
A Section on 12/09/2015