The Blytheville School District -- which earlier claimed an exemption from a state law that allows students to transfer to schools in districts in which they don't reside -- is now taking steps to fully permit those moves.
Richard Atwill, the superintendent of Blytheville schools, this week asked that the Arkansas Board of Education at its January meeting to exercise its authority to waive a statute that he sees as a barrier to full participation in the student-transfer program.
Specifically, he is asking for a waiver of Arkansas Code Annotated 6-18-317, which prohibits a school board from granting "legal transfers" of students if the district has ever had federal court desegregation obligations and if the student transfer would negatively affect the racial balance of that district.
Legal transfers are those in which school boards in the home and receiving school districts decide student transfers on a case-by-case basis.
If the district participated in School Choice Act transfers but was prevented from approving legal transfers because of a negative effect on racial balance -- not all students could participate in the transfer program.
A state Education Board waiver of the legal transfer law would enable students of any race who reside in the Blytheville district to attend public schools in other districts, in accordance with the School Choice Act that was first approved in 1989 and revised in 2013 and 2015.
Students in Blytheville and 17 other school districts this school year have been prevented from participating in School Choice Act transfers because those districts are under federal court desegregation directives, some of which are old and inactive.
Blytheville is the second district among those 18 to move toward allowing student transfers. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson ruled that enrollment of Forrest City School District students in nearby districts under the state's school-choice laws does not violate Forrest City's federal desegregation order.
The Blytheville district, in particular, has long been at the center of a debate over whether inactive federal desegregation cases should preclude students living in the district from attending public schools in other districts.
The Blytheville issue has gone as high as the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at St. Louis, which ruled in favor of the district in August. The lawsuit was filed by 10 parents who wanted to transfer their children out of poorly performing Blytheville schools to better ones in neighboring school systems.
"It is my understanding ... that if the waiver is granted, there will be no genuine legal conflict, in the eyes of the Arkansas Department of Education, which would prohibit Blytheville School District from participating in school choice under the 2015 School Choice Act," Atwill said to Kendra Clay, an Arkansas Department of Education attorney this week in a letter asking for the state Education Board waiver.
"Therefore, Blytheville would be authorized and required to participate in school choice under the 2015 Act, to the same extent as school districts which have never been under any type of desegregation-related court order," Atwill wrote.
Atwill was out of his office Thursday and did not return messages left with his staff about the waiver request.
The Arkansas Department of Education initiated the review of desegregation obligations in the state's school districts earlier this year based on the districts' compliance with state standards for school district accreditation.
One of those standards requires districts that have not been declared unitary or desegregated by a federal court to submit a report to the Education Department by Sept. 15 each year in which district leaders state whether they think the school district is unitary or not. Those districts that believe they are unitary should provide a detailed plan with timelines on how they have complied with its obligations and how they will seek to obtain release from court supervision.
Clay, the Education Department's attorney, said in a letter Monday to Atwill that based on the review of the Blytheville School District information, "it appears that the Blytheville School District is no longer under active desegregation orders or under the supervision of the court in Franklin v Blytheville School District," which was a desegregation lawsuit.
"Based on this determination, the Blytheville School District has met its obligations required by ... the Standards of Accreditation and is released from further reports required by [the state]," Clay wrote.
Clay said the district presented information showing that the Blytheville desegregation case was dismissed.
Jess Askew III of Little Rock, an attorney for parents in the Blytheville district, argued to the Education Board in August that the Blytheville desegregation case was closed in 1978 by a federal judge.
Askew presented a partial transcript of a 2013 federal court hearing in which he asked Atwill about Blytheville's desegregation efforts. Atwill told Askew in that hearing that he didn't know whether the man listed as the district's attorney in its desegregation case was alive.
Atwill also was quoted in the transcript as saying he didn't know when the district had last reported to a federal court on desegregation matters and didn't know what remedies to segregation were left to implement in the district.
In her letter to Atwill this week, Clay noted that Blytheville district leaders were concerned that Arkansas Code 6-18-317 prohibits legal transfers if a district was ever under a court order and if the transfer would negatively affect racial balance. Atwill believed it could be a barrier to the district's full participation in School Choice transfers.
Clay disagreed with that.
"While we do not believe this presents a conflict, to the extent that it does, the District may apply for a waiver of the prohibitions in 6-18-317" as permitted by Arkansas Code Annotated 6-18-318, she said.
That law says that any district not currently under a desegregation-related court order but has been in the past and has a student requesting a transfer that would negatively affect the racial balance of the district may apply for a waiver.
"The State Board of Education may grant such a district a waiver from the provisions of 6-18-317 if it is determined that the district's desegregation status would not be adversely affected by allowing a legal transfer that would negatively affect the district's racial balance," the law adds.
Clay said in a telephone interview Thursday that only Blytheville has raised concerns about the particular laws dealing with former desegregation orders and legal transfers of students, and whether those legal transfer restrictions could prevent some School Choice Act student transfers.
"I don't know if there will be others later. They are unique at this point," Clay said about Blytheville. "We're still in the process of trying to figure out what the desegregation obligations are in the various districts. This is the only one that has gotten to this point."
In addition to Blytheville and Forrest City, other school districts that have been claiming exemptions to participating in the School Choice Act transfers include the Pulaski County Special School District and seven in Garland County: Hot Springs, Fountain Lake, Jessieville, Lakeside, Mountain Pine, Lake Hamilton and Cutter Morning Star.
The other districts that have been claiming school-choice law conflicts with their desegregation obligations are Camden Fairview, El Dorado, Hope, Junction City, Lafayette County, Brinkley, Dollarway and Texarkana.
In some of these districts, there hasn't been active court oversight for years -- or ever. A few say they can't allow school choice because of promises they made to the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare -- an agency that no longer exists in that form -- in the 1970s.
On Thursday, Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin applauded Blytheville's move toward allowing students to transfer to other districts.
"My eyes lit up with excitement this morning when I read Blytheville Public School Superintendent Richard Atwill's letter to the Arkansas Department of Education regarding the Blytheville School District's willingness and desire to participate in public school choice, Griffin said in a prepared statement.
"I recently visited with Blytheville parents and toured Blytheville public schools with Superintendent Atwill, and I believe Superintendent Atwill's request is a step in the right direction," Griffin added.
In the Blytheville district, about 80 percent of the 2,400 students are black and about 80 percent are classified as low income. Twelve percent are eligible to receive special education.
In middle school, only 49.4 percent of students score proficient or better on state math and literacy exams in 2014, the last year for which information is available. By high school, only 42.7 percent achieved proficiency.
"It has been the intent of Blytheville School District all along to comply with all applicable laws, court orders, and regulations, Atwill told Clay in asking for the state Education Board waiver.
A Section on 12/18/2015