The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis in late December upheld an earlier decision by El Dorado U.S. District Judge Susan O. Hickey to restrict Arkansas School Choice Act transfers out of four south Arkansas school districts including the Junction City School District.
According to an article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Hickey’s 2019 rulings altered several federal school desegregation consent decrees for the four districts, allowing them to claim exemptions from the Arkansas School Choice Act to avoid infringing upon desegregation requirements.
An 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made the decision to uphold those rulings on Dec. 31 following an appeal by the state Attorney General’s Office representing the state Department of Education and Board of Education.
In an email to the News-Times, JCSD superintendent Robby Lowe explained the background and context of his district’s involvement in the case.
“The Arkansas School Choice Laws have always had language that addresses the laws’ effects on desegregation. The Junction City School District initially filed for the exemption from the 2013 law based on several court cases going back into the late 1960’and early 1970’s. The main emphasis of the court orders center on the [JCSD] not engaging in practices that are segregative in nature. The administration and JCSD Board felt it prudent to get a legal opinion,” Lowe wrote.
The Arkansas Public School Choice Act establishes a program that allows students to transfer to districts in which they are not residents. The law also includes several limitations on transfers, including a 3% of total enrollment transfer limit and language limiting transfers that “conflict with a provision of an enforceable desegregation court order or a district’s court-approved desegregation plan regarding the effects of past racial segregation in student assignment.”
A 2019 Democrat-Gazette article states that Hickey’s 2019 rulings approved changing the terms of the four districts’ prior desegregation orders to include that bar on segregative interdistrict transfers of students “unless such a transfer is requested for education or compassionate purposes.”
Lowe said that the ruling offers clarity for the school district regarding transfers.
“The purpose of our joining with the other districts is simply a search for clarity given that almost all transfer requests are from white families seeking admission into predominately white school districts. The administration and board contend that there is no real benefit from the exemption other than we feel it is important to follow the spirit of the original court orders. By being exempt from School Choice, we cannot accept students through School Choice. The JCSD board is consistent in both granting and accepting board to board transfers that are non-segregative and are for the benefit of the children involved,” Lowe wrote.