Leader executive editor
Jacksonville residents are fortunate that U.S. District
Judge D. Price Marshall Jr., a brilliant jurist, is overseeing their move
toward independence from the Pulaski County Special School District after
decades of turmoil.
With encouragement from Judge Marshall, let’s hope voters
will approve a 7.6-mill property tax increase on Feb. 9 to pay for $80 million
in school improvements. Early voting begins Feb. 2.
The new district has bounced around from court to court,
often encountering judges who knew nothing about the needs of Jacksonville
students. But Marshall understands what the new district needs: Modern
facilities with knowledgeable staff dedicated to improving student test scores
and turning out young scholars who can compete in our modern world.
Marshall, who is in the mold of Learned Hand (the greatest
federal judge who never made it to the Supreme Court), last week approved
Jacksonville’s facilities plan despite an objection from civil rights attorney
John Walker.
Although far from perfect, the facilities plan includes a
new high school on the site of the old middle schools, a new elementary school
near the air base, remodeling North Pulaski High School as a middle school and
adding multi-purpose buildings at all of the other elementary schools.
Marshall cautioned that building a new high school and an
elementary school is only a start. The new district must also work toward
arranging state financing and replace its four other dilapidated elementary
schools that should have been demolished years ago.
He wants Jacksonville schools as up to date as those in
Maumelle and Sherwood that the Joshua Intervenors and Walker cited on behalf of
minority students.
The judge could also point to the new Lighthouse Academy
Charter Schools in Jacksonville and on the air base, as well as new facilities
in Cabot and elsewhere that meet standards required by the state and federal
courts. Surely youngsters in Jacksonville deserve no less.
“We must not let the perfect become the enemy of the good,”
wrote Marshall as he signed off on the Jacksonville-North Pulaski School
District’s master facilities plan.
“The court holds that JNPSD’s proposed master facilities
plan, though incomplete, keeps faith with Plan 2000 and is likely to promote,
not hinder, eliminating the vestiges of past discrimination insofar as
practical,” Marshall wrote.
“The proposed master plan is approved with an important
condition: it must be supplemented by (Dec. 31, 2016) with when-and-how
specifics about replacing the four other elementary schools, so that all the
new district’s elementary schools are equal. Joshua’s objections are overruled
and its request for an evidentiary hearing is denied.”
The new district says there won’t be enough money to build
six new elementaries. “That murky and complicated future, however, is precisely
why JNPSD needs a complete plan for replacing all elementary facilities — with
options, contingencies, fallbacks and play in the joints to accommodate the
developing circumstances,” the judge wrote.
Marshall gave the district until the end of this year to
draft a new master plan for 2019, when a new round of state school partnership
matching money becomes available that would replace the four other elementary
schools.
JNP Superintendent Tony Wood told our reporter John
Hofheimer that a new facilities plan is in the works even as the district
prepares for the Feb. 9 millage-tax increase and becomes fully independent July
1.
Marshall noted that the facilities master plan would be “a
significant step toward equal facilities for all students. The new high school
and middle school will serve children of all races. Locating the high school in
downtown Jacksonville signals a commitment — not only to that city’s hub, but
to the many African-American families and their children who live close by.”
Walker objected to combining Arnold Drive elementary school
on the air base and the nearby Tolleson elementary into a new school along the
base perimeter, calling it a gift to white students. Apparently, Walker hasn’t
been on the base to notice how many minority students come from military
families.
Marshall dismissed Walker’s claim that the new elementary
“would become a white-flight school.” The judge pointed out the Defense
Department would pay up to half the cost of the new elementary school, which
shows “good stewardship of limited public dollars, not discriminatory intent,”
he wrote.
But Marshall is still not satisfied: “There’s something
missing,” he continued. “No plan or timetable for replacing the four other
elementary schools (Bayou Meto, Dupree, Pinewood and Taylor) is included.”
Marshall wrote, “To achieve unitary status, JNPSD must have
a plan for making all facilities clean, safe, attractive and equal and must be
implementing that plan in good faith to the extent practicable.”
The 7.6-mill tax increase, if passed, would make property
tax millage in the district 48.3 mills, the same as North Little Rock, and
about 2 mills higher than the Little Rock School District — 46.4 mills.
The new district is preparing a budget of about $37 million
to $40 million, including new taxes for next year, minimum foundation aid from
the state and a one-time state desegregation payment of about $5 million.
Funding is not guaranteed, but Jacksonville could show Judge
Marshall how the new district will not only put its finances in order but make
JNPSD a beacon of hope for its students.
Walker could still take his case to the Eighth U.S. Court of
Appeals, where Marshall might serve one day, probably with as much distinction
as he has in Arkansas.
Once Marshall releases the Jacksonville district from court
supervision, the JNPSD board should consider naming the new high school for the
distinguished jurist.
Marshall High School has a nice ring to it.
