Samnorwood Independent School Dist. v. Texas Educ.
| Citation | 533 F.3d 258 |
| Decision Date | 24 June 2008 |
| Docket Number | No. 06-41347.,06-41347. |
| Parties | SAMNORWOOD INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT; Harrold Independent School District, Movants-Appellants, v. TEXAS EDUCATION AGENCY; State of Texas, Defendants-Appellees, G.I. Forum; League of United Latin American Citizens, Intervenor Plaintiffs-Appellees. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit) |
v.
TEXAS EDUCATION AGENCY; State of Texas, Defendants-Appellees,
[533 F.3d 259]
William C. Bednar, Jr. (argued), Law Office of William C. Bednar, Austin, TX, for Movants-Appellants.
David G. Hinojosa (argued), Nina Perales, Mexican Am. Legal Defense & Educational Fund, San Antonio, TX, for Intervenor Plaintiffs-Appellees.
[533 F.3d 260]
James C. Todd, Asst. Atty. Gen. (argued), Austin, TX, Dona Hamilton Cornell, Housten, TX, for Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
Before GARWOOD, GARZA and BENAVIDES, Circuit Judges.
GARWOOD, Circuit Judge:
This case involves two independent school districts located in the Texas panhandle challenging whether a some thirty-six-year-old federal court desegregation order can properly be applied to them when they were not a party to the suit when the order was entered and have never been found to have discriminated against students since they voluntarily and completely desegregated in the 1960s.
Because we believe that the application of the modified order to these two districts is unwarranted under current school desegregation law, we reverse and render.
In March 1970, the United States brought suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against numerous specified Texas school districts, their governing boards, their officials, the State of Texas, and the Texas Education Association ("TEA") in order to achieve meaningful school desegregation. United States v. State of Texas, 321 F.Supp. 1043 (E.D.Tex., Nov.24, 1970); United States v. State of Texas, 330 F.Supp. 235 (E.D.Tex., May 11, 1971), affirmed in part, modified in part, 447 F.2d 441 (5th Cir.1971) (affirming order of Nov. 24, 1970, modifying order of April 20, 1971). The district court found that the named school districts were responsible for maintaining a dual school system and TEA aided this effort by funding the segregated school districts. To redress this discrimination, the district court entered an order on November 24, 1970, modified August 9, 1973, that has governed various aspects of public education in the state of Texas since then.1 The Modified Order provides, among other things, that:
"[TEA] shall not permit, make arrangement for or give support of any kind to student transfers, between school districts, when the cumulative effect, in either the sending or receiving school or school district, will be to reduce or impede desegregation, or to reinforce, renew, or encourage the continuation of acts and practices resulting in discriminatory treatment of students on the grounds of race, color, or national origin."
This case, like much of the recent litigation under the Modified Order,2 involves small rural independent school districts competing over students to keep their local schools financially viable. Samnorwood and Harrold Independent School Districts (together the "School Districts") are located in the Texas panhandle and each have a single campus that serves the district's entire study body, grades K-12. Samnorwood is in Collingsworth County, southeast of Amarillo, and Harrold is in Wilbarger County, east of the city of Vernon. Black students from Samnorwood attended a
segregated school in an adjoining district until July 8, 1963, and Black students from Harrold attended a segregated school in an adjoining district until October, 4, 1965.3 After those dates, all children attended school in each district without regard to race, color, or national origin. Both School Districts desegregated by a vote of their respective school boards well before the commencement of United States v. Texas, and neither was ever a party to a desegregation order or have ever been shown to have acted with segregative intent in accepting transfer students (or otherwise). During the 2002-2003 school year, Harrold's enrollment was 112 students, of whom 1% were Black, 31% were Hispanic, and 63% were non-Hispanic white. Samnorwood's enrollment for the same school year was 101 students, of whom 3% were Black, 20% were Hispanic, and 75% were non-Hispanic white.
Both School Districts depend heavily on transfer students for their economic viability. Each accepts transfer students regardless of the race or ethnicity of the student, and neither charges tuition to any transfer student. During the 2002-2003 school year, seventy-four percent of Samnorwood's students and "virtually all" of Harrold's students were transfers.
Under Texas law, any child eligible for enrollment may transfer from his home district to any other district if the receiving district and a custodial parent (or guardian) jointly approve and timely agree in writing. Tex. Educ.Code § 25.036. TEA annually distributes funds to Texas school districts based on the average daily attendance of enrolled students, whether the students reside in the district or have transferred from another district. Tex. Educ.Code §§ 7.055(b)(35), 42.005, 42.101. Other than allocating funding based on student enrollment, Texas law does not otherwise empower TEA to oversee student transfers. Nevertheless, the Modified Order requires TEA to monitor all student transfers and to refuse to fund transfers in certain circumstances.4
In order to comply with its obligations under the Modified Order, TEA requires each school district to inform TEA whenever it receives a transfer student. Prior to 2002, schools recorded transfer data on paper and submitted it to TEA, but in the spring of 2002, TEA implemented a new automated Student Transfer System ("STS") to track transfers. Under the new system, schools are still required to report transfers, but now they submit that information electronically using STS.5 Once a student transfer is submitted using STS, TEA calculates whether the transfer has a "segregative effect."6 Any transfer
that exceeds the applicable one- or three-percent rule is deemed ineligible. STS operates in "real time," meaning that it maintains a current calculation of every school district's racial and ethnic demographics, so when a transfer student is entered into the system it calculates what effect that transfer has on the current minority percentage at the sending and receiving schools.7 STS does not make a permanent record of whether transfers are deemed eligible when they are entered or of a school's minority percentage on any particular day so there is no way for TEA to use STS to verify whether a transfer was deemed eligible when it was entered.8
In order to monitor the cumulative enrollment, TEA also requires school districts to report student data to its Public Education Information Management System ("PEIMS") after each school year. See Tex. Educ.Code § 42.006. The PEIMS data allows TEA to compute the average daily attendance of each school district. At the end of the year, TEA reconciles the data from PEIMS with the data from STS to determine whether student transfers have caused a school's minority percentage to change by more than one or three percent in violation of section A(3)(b) of the Modified Order. If a school has accepted an ineligible transfer in a particular year, the school loses funding for the next year for each day that the ineligible student attended the school. If a school district fails to enter a transfer into STS, TEA treats that student as an ineligible transfer and the school loses funding for that student as well.
If a school district remains in violation after being notified by TEA that it has accepted an ineligible transfer, the Modified Order instructs TEA to escalate sanctions against the district. Section A(6) requires TEA to refuse to fund transfers that violate the order. Section A(7) requires TEA to suspend a school district's accreditation if it fails to correct the violation after a ten-day warning.
In this case, STS reported that Samnorwood exceeded the three-percent limitation by accepting one ineligible transfer student, "Vincent R.," and TEA also determined that Samnorwood had failed to enter three transfers into STS. TEA informed Samnorwood by letter on March 24, 2004, that $10,746 in funds would be withheld from its funding for the following year due to the three unreported students and Vincent R.'s transfer. In another letter dated March 24, 2004, TEA informed Harrold that it would have $100,069 withheld from its funding for the following year because it had failed to enter seventeen transfers into STS. The School Districts both requested an informal review of TEA's funding decision as provided by TEA policy. During that review, both School Districts admitted that they had not entered the transfers into STS, but they were able to show that some of the transfers were nevertheless eligible for funding because they were approved exemptions
as defined by the Modified Order.9 TEA waived the nonreporting fine for theses students. TEA also restored funding for Vincent R. because Samnorwood was able to prove that, on the day his transfer was entered, STS declared him an eligible transfer. TEA, however, left the fines intact for the three unreported transfers from Samnorwood and the twelve unreported and nonexempt transfers from Harrold, so after the informal review, Samnorwood was penalized $6,111, and Harrold was penalized $68,525.10 In late 2004 the School Districts intervened into this case (United States v. Texas) in order to challenge the sanctions imposed by TEA and the validity of the Modified Order on its face and as applied to them.
In its order, the district court held that it did not exceed its remedial power by entering the Modified Order because it did not seek to reverse...
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