Trial set for 2017 in LR schools case
A jury trial in a federal lawsuit challenging the state takeover of the Little Rock School District as well as conditions of schools attended by black students is tentatively scheduled to begin July 10, 2017.
The staff for U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. issued an initial scheduling order this week. Marshall is the presiding judge in the case filed last year by a team of attorneys headed by Rep. John Walker D-Little Rock.
The parties in the lawsuit are directed by the court to meet and report back to the judge by June 9, 2016, on several matters including an estimate on the number of days that will be needed for the trial. A final scheduling order for submitting documents and holding the trial will follow.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Jim Ross and Joy Springer, who were removed from their Little Rock School Board positions when the state took over the district in January 2015 because six of 48 schools were identified by the state as academically distressed. Other plaintiffs are a group of black students and their families, most of whom are not identified by their real names but by the last name of Doe.
The defendants are state Education Commissioner Johnny Key, the state Board of Education and the state-appointed Little Rock Superintendent Baker Kurrus.
Transfer sign-ups deadline Sunday
Sunday is the annual May 1 application deadline for parents who want their children to attend a public school in a district other than the one in which they live.
The Public School Choice Act 560 of 2015 allows interdistrict student transfers with some restrictions.
The school choice application form is available by clicking on the "School Choice" link, found under the "Educational Options" headline on the Arkansas Department of Education website: arkansased.gov.
The applications must be postmarked no later than May 1 of the year in which the students seeks to begin the fall semester.
The applications are to be sent to the nonresident district. The superintendent of the nonresident district is to notify the parent and the resident district in writing by July 1 if the application for a transfer student has been accepted or rejected.
Sixteen school districts have notified the Arkansas Department of Education that they are not participating in the School Choice Act transfers because they have conflicts with active court orders on desegregation. Those districts are: Hot Springs; Fountain Lake; Jessieville; Lakeside in Garland County; Mountain Pine; Lake Hamilton; Camden Fairview; El Dorado; Hope; Pulaski County Special; Junction City; Lafayette County; Cutter Morning Star; Dollarway; Texarkana and Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District.
New schools chief on panel's agenda
The Little Rock School District's state-appointed Civic Advisory Committee will hold its regular monthly meeting from 5 to 7 p.m. today at Terry Elementary School, 10800 Mara Lynn Drive.
The agenda includes the new superintendent in the Little Rock district and the committee's future, as well as preparations of a report that the committee has been working on for several months.
The committee meeting will be the first since Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key notified Superintendent Baker Kurrus that his contract will not be renewed when it expires June 30 and that Bentonville Superintendent Michael Poore will become the district's chief executive.
Key has also said in recent days that he will accelerate the creation of a Community Advisory Board for the state-controlled Little Rock district. The Community Advisory Board is authorized in state law for a state-controlled district that has made some initial improvements. A Community Advisory Board is tasked with making recommendations on employee issues, student discipline and other matters that commissioners who acts in lieu of a school board must decide on. The Community Advisory Board is also to report on a district's progress on correcting issues that led to a state takeover.
Key will ask the state Education Board at its May 12 meeting to initiate the process of appointing an advisory board, Kimberly Friedman, a spokesman for the state agency, said this week.
The Community Advisory Board is different than Little Rock's existing Civic Advisory Committee -- made up of parents, students, teachers and philanthropic leaders -- that was created not in law but specifically by the state Education Board when the state board took over the district in January 2015.
Metro on 04/28/2016