Little Rock School Dist. v. PULASKI CTY. SP. SD, LR-C-82-866.

• Citation: 769 F. Supp. 1483
• Decision Date: 21 June 1991
• Docket Number: No. LR-C-82-866.,LR-C-82-866.
• Parties: LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT, Plaintiff, v. PULASKI COUNTY SPECIAL SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1, et al., Defendants, Mrs. Lorene Joshua, et al., Katherine W. Knight, et al., Intervenors.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas

769 F. Supp. 1483

LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT, Plaintiff, v. PULASKI COUNTY SPECIAL SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1, et al., Defendants, Mrs. Lorene Joshua, et al., Katherine W. Knight, et al., Intervenors.

No. LR-C-82-866.

United States District Court, E.D. Arkansas, W.D.

June 21, 1991.

Christopher Heller, Little Rock, Ark., for plaintiff LRSD.

Samuel M. Jones, III, Little Rock, Ark., for defendants PCSSD, et al.

Stephen W. Jones, Little Rock, Ark., for NLRSD.

John W. Walker, Little Rock, Ark., for intervenors Joshua, et al.

Richard Roachell, Little Rock, Ark., for intervenors Knight, et al.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

SUSAN WEBBER WRIGHT, District Judge.

The parties have submitted to the Court a legion of proposed modifications to the settlement plans approved by the court of appeals in Little Rock School District v. Pulaski County Special School District No. 1, 921 F.2d 1371 (8th Cir.1990). Taken as a whole, the parties have fashioned a set of plans remarkably different from those approved by the Eighth Circuit. While some modifications of the settlement plans are both necessary and acceptable, neither the court of appeals nor this Court has authorized the parties, in effect, to write new plans. Careful study of the documents submitted on May 1, 1991 (hereinafter referred to as the May submissions) reveals that the changes exceed the bounds of permissible alterations outlined by the court of appeals.

The Eighth Circuit, after examining all four settlement plans, concluded that they were "reasonable, good-faith efforts to solve seemingly intractable problems ... embodying significant relief for the plaintiff class," id. at 1388, which provided a "constitutionally accepted level of relief," id. at 1390. Accordingly, on December 12, 1990, the court of appeals directed this Court to approve the settlement plans "as submitted by the parties," id. at 1376, and to monitor the parties' compliance with such plans to ensure that they are "scrupulously adhered to," id. at 1386.

The order approving the settlement plans included two provisions giving the parties flexibility to incorporate portions of the Tri-District Plan and to facilitate the transition from the Tri-District Plan to the settlement plans. First, the Eighth Circuit recognized that "the parties may conclude that the Tri-District Plan contains useful ideas. They are free, by agreement, to modify the settlement plans by incorporating in them one or more provisions of the Tri-District Plan, subject, of course, to the approval of the District Court." Id. at 1393 n. 15 (emphasis added). Second, the court permitted the parties to make necessary transitional "adjustments" in certain details of the settlement plans.

The parties have been proceeding during this school year under the terms of our interim order filed on July 2, 1990. It may be necessary, in order to make a smooth transition, for the details of the settlement plans to be adjusted to produce an appropriate fit between their future application and existing circumstances. The parties should be able to agree as to whether such adjustments are necessary, and, if so, what they should be. Absent such agreement, the District Court is authorized to take such actions as may be just.

Id. at 1394 (emphasis added.)

Neither exception gives the parties latitude to make such extensive modifications to the settlement plans as those now before the Court. In addition to considerable alterations in both language and style, the parties now propose substantive changes in the settlement plans with little or no basis in the Tri-District Plan or justification as necessary transitional adjustments. Even though Pulaski County Special School District's (PCSSD) "reorganized" or "amended" plan purports to address "the major programs and practices of the Tri-District Plan which the parties have agreed to implement or continue" (p. 703),¹ the Court is unable to find any proposed modification incorporating substantive provisions of the Tri-District Plan which did not appear in the original PCSSD plan.²

The parties have agreed to settle this case. They assured the court of appeals that they would abide by the terms of the settlement plans. Indeed, the court noted that "the parties have made solemn undertakings," 921 F.2d at 1390, and directed this Court to take appropriate action "if the parties do not live up to their commitments," id. at 1386. Now the parties are retreating from a number of their promises.

A few examples will illustrate. The PCSSD's May submission: (1) substantially reduces the library media program (pp. 751-56, 830-34); (2) deletes major portions of the section on special education, especially concerning handicapped students (pp. 766-76); (3) reduces the original provisions regarding the analysis of factors affecting student discipline, particularly the problem of black students being disciplined disproportionately (pp. 806-08); (4) cuts the number of secondary curriculum coordinators by more than half (p. 739); (5) does away with PATWICK (Parents and Teachers Working in Cooperation for Kids), a parent involvement program begun in 1986 (pp. 824-25); (6) removes from consideration several programs to improve student achievement, including peer tutoring, homework hotlines, and plans for a parent education program (p. 748); and (7) deletes the provision requiring school counselors to establish at each secondary school a committee composed of students, parents, and teachers to address the problems of teenage pregnancy, drug addiction, and divorce/stepfamilies (p. 762).³

Incredibly, the PCSSD May submission proposes to delete virtually the entire 144-page Appendix to the original PCSSD settlement plan. This same Appendix was submitted to the court of appeals as a part of the parties negotiated settlement plan, the implementation of which the Eighth Circuit directed this Court to monitor in scrupulous detail. Some documents in the Appendix have been deleted without any explanation; others were swept aside with notations of "style change," "outdated," "redundant," or "omitted by agreement" (although there is no clue as to who agreed to any of the omissions). To the contrary, the Appendix contains information that is not a question of style, currentness, or redundancy, but rather a matter of important substance including: (1) implementation charts which specify goals, objectives, activities, time sequences, and persons responsible for numerous programs and operations; (2) the statement of the Board of Education's policy on student assignment which includes the "freeze" limitation on school enrollment for desegregation purposes; (3) an agreement for tri-district collaboration among the LRSD, PCSSD, and NLRSD based on their "understanding of the absolute importance of a collaborative effort in desegregation and desegregative efforts among the three districts" (9 App. 2079)⁴ as detailed in thirteen pages of Implementation Guidelines covering such areas as student disciplinary and attendance policies, mutually supportive and equitable personnel recruitment and placement procedures, establishing a county wide School Improvement Council to address ongoing desegregation and improvement efforts, joint programs in guidance/counseling, an alternative school, enhanced testing programs and student preparation, and a Collaborative Budget Summary for support of the cooperative efforts, including the alternative school; (4) a summary of the Language Enrichment Activity Program (LEAP) for primary students; and (5) task sequences for the district's desegregative monitoring of special education.

Also deleted as a whole is a "PCSSD Supplement to Intradistrict Student Assignment Plan," an agreement among the PCSSD, LRSD, and Joshua Intervenors regarding interdistrict schools; however, certain features of this agreement have been reincorporated with changes in the May 1991 submission. Absent, too, are the subsections of this Supplement which detail specialty programs at several schools, proposed student reassignments, and special recruitment projects.

It is especially troubling that among the PCSSD deletions is the parties' agreement to abide by fourteen "guiding principles" which apply to the "process of permanent plan development" (9 App. 2171). The Eighth Circuit referenced and quoted from this document, titled "Agreement and Recommendation", in its recent December 12, 1990 opinion:

13. With the exception of Bayou Meto, the goal of the plan shall be to achieve a minimum black student enrollment of 20% by the end of six years in all PCSSD schools....

14. With the exception of Bayou Meto, it is hoped that the dynamics of the plan will result, by the end of the implementation period, in all PCSSD schools being within the range of plus or minus 25% of the then prevailing district-wide average of blacks by organizational level. However, at a minimum, at the end of the implementation period, no PCSSD school shall have a black enrollment which exceeds the then prevailing black ratio, by organizational level, in the Little Rock School District. If the ratios have not been achieved at the end of six years, the 1989 plan shall be completely reevaluated by all parties and the Court. Upon that event the Joshua Intervenors may apply for implementation of a mandatory reassignment plan in order to achieve a racially balanced school system.

921 F.2d at 1378-79 (quoting 9 App. 2178-79 ("Agreement and Recommendation" of PCSSD and Joshua intervenors, May 1988, incorporated by reference in PCSSD's Plan, 19 App. 5274)). It is inconceivable that the parties would propose to delete a document which the Eighth Circuit has used as a basis for its approval of the settlement plan. As the court of appeals noted:

Thus, the Plan did not ask the District Court to let PCSSD permanently off the hook so far as racial ratios were concerned. Far from it. It included specific goals for attendance percentages, and provided that if the minimum prescribed goal was not

...