The U.S. Department of Justice has multiple issues with the upcoming Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District’s merger plan, including the preservation of a “one-race, African-American” school already comprised mostly of minority students, court records show.
A response filed last week in federal court states the government does not object to parts of the proposed plan — student assignment, transfers, transportation and gifted education within grades 7-12, specifically — but it opposes elements pertaining to student assignment in grades K-6, educational opportunities afforded to Oktibbeha County sixth graders and the process assigning faculty and staff to the consolidated district.
After a state takeover of Oktibbeha County School District, lawmakers passed legislation merging the system with Starkville School District this summer. SSD Superintendent Lewis Holloway, OCSD Conservator Margie Pulley and other members of the state-created Commission on Starkville Consolidated School District Structure began hashing through merger issues and created a joint city-county plan to join the districts.
The DOJ’s filing comes after school officials proposed a new desegregation order in March for the upcoming consolidated district. SSD and OCSD have operated under individual desegregation orders since 1970 banning a dual system — one for Caucasian and another for African-American students — within the two districts. Both orders remain active, and neither system has been declared “unitary” by the government, documents state.
Come July 1, state legislation mandates SSD and OCSD merge with or without an approved desegregation order.
The SOCSD merger plan, as negotiated by CSSDS members and rubber-stamped by the Legislature, realistically tackles consolidation issues by working with county conditions and statistics, Holloway said.
Future endeavors, like securing funding for a grades 6-7 demonstration school at Mississippi State University, and recently approved staffing moves, he said, could render many of the DOJ’s objections moot.
“If we can’t do things to make (a consolidated school system) more efficient and better for kids, then we haven’t accomplished anything. I have to make (consolidation) right July 1, and we’re not given an opportunity for a transition. That’s all we’re asking for,” he said. “If there’s no desegregation order approved by July 1, we’re still moving forward. Personally, I think we’ll be in federal court.”
EOCES racial makeup questioned
Under the proposed consolidation plan, East and West Oktibbeha County high schools will close, and all countywide freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors will attend Starkville High School.
County seventh and eighth graders will also transfer to Armstrong Middle School, where city sixth graders will also attend.
The county’s two elementary schools, located in the eastern and western portions of the county, will remain open and service prekindergarten through sixth grade students residing in outlying Oktibbeha County — their current attendance zones.
City elementary schools will also retain their existing attendance zones.
Racial breakdowns within the DOJ’s filing forecast the average racial composition of the five countywide elementary schools — East Oktibbeha, West Oktibbeha, Sudduth, Ward-Stewart and Henderson — at 69 percent African-American and 26 percent Caucasian, with four of the five elementary schools projected to enroll between 64 percent to 72 percent African-American pupils.
The plan, however, preserves East Oktibbeha County Elementary School as “a virtually one-race school,” with a 94 percent African-American projected enrollment.
The DOJ “asked the defendants what alternative school assignment configurations they considered and why (they) did not elect a plan with a more desegregative effect,” but the merger study group rejected this option “as impracticable, citing lack of capacity at any of the Starkville elementary schools to accommodate the addition of Oktibbeha students,” the government’s filing states.
Projections within the filing show officials expect enrollment at Sudduth Elementary to exceed capacity — 1,117 students enrolled to the school’s 886 capacity — while EOCES enrollment is expected to fall 36 students shy of capacity.
Rezoning — bussing white students to the county — from Sudduth, a school with a projected 66 percent African-American enrollment, could curb desegregation issues at EOCES, and the district’s own desegregation plan would allow a majority-to-minority campus transfer policy for pupils.
The merger study group, however, agreed to keep attendance zones for all county and city elementary schools the same during the district’s transition period and after consolidation.
The racial makeup of EOCHS, Holloway said, is not intentional because its service area after July 1 will encompass the same territory previously serviced by OCSD. Bussing city students to county campuses would likely draw the ire of many parents, he said.
Holloway also pointed to other efforts combining city and county students: plans will mix countywide pupils at AMS and SHS, while all grades 6-7 students will attend the demonstration school once it is built.
The DOJ’s filing says it is willing to work with SOCSD on a revised plan that will further desegregation at EOCES. If the court rules time constraints prevent the development and implementation of a modified 2015-2016 school year plan, it asks the school system to develop and submit a new proposal by Oct. 1 for the 2016-2017 academic year.
Demonstration school could solve sixth grade issues
The government’s filing also claims 54 sixth graders attending county elementary schools will not receive the same educational offerings in drama, music and robotics as afforded to AMS students, but Holloway said the district recently hired staff to shore up these shortcomings.
It also suggests SOCSD send all countywide sixth graders to Overstreet School or operate either East or West Oktibbeha High School for the age group.
A plan utilizing Overstreet for similar efforts was previously broached by the merger study group but passed over when officials realized how many services, including daily meals for students, would have to be shipped to the central Starkville campus from other facilities.
Educating county sixth graders at the two former OCSD campuses is a temporary plan, one that will cease once the grades 6-7 demonstration school is constructed.
Additionally, the Starkville school board, which will guide the consolidated district after July 1, approved art and music teacher hires specifically for the students, Holloway said.
“These kids never had these opportunities to begin with, and now we’re trying to give them options. We’re going to give these students as seventh graders first selection for electives, too,” he said. “We believe we’ll be able to build the 6-7 school, but I need a couple of years to make that happen.
“(The county high school campuses’) locations prohibit” them from being viable alternatives, he added.
Again, the DOJ asks SOCSD to submit a modified plan “that ensures equitable course offerings and electives” for all students if sixth grade county students attend EOCES and WOCES next academic year.
Conservator holds nonrenewal power
The government also opposed SOCSD’s staffing plan — the process of hiring, retaining and dismissing junior and high school-level employees — in the wake of the two county campus closures.
Although it allowed terminated or nonrenewed employees to reapply for positions within the consolidated school system, the DOJ said it “does not meet (desegregation) obligations because it disproportionately burdens black faculty and staff in Oktibbeha to the advantage of Starkville’s majority white faculty.”
The racial makeup of the two high schools’ faculty and staff are 72 percent and 84 percent African-American, the DOJ’s filing states, while the city high school’s faculty and staff makeup is 37 percent and 48 percent African-American.
“Instead of firing faculty and staff in the Oktibbeha schools, (officials) could have elected to advertise all positions for faculty and staff serving grades 7-12 in the newly consolidated district and require all faculty and staff currently serving those grades in Oktibbeha and Starkville to reapply for the positions in the consolidated district,” the DOJ’s filing states. “Alternatively, the district could have foregone advertising openings and, instead, assessed all employees in both districts using objective, nondiscriminatory selection criteria and retained those with the highest rankings while nonrenewing all others.”
The government went on to say SOCSD’s plan “could, arguably, result in greater exposure to litigation.”
Pulley was charged by the Legislature to create staffing recommendations for Holloway before July 1’s consolidation. Additionally, it is Pulley, not Holloway, who has authority to nonrenew or fire any county employee as OCSD remains under conservatorship.
At its last meeting, Starkville’s school board approved a list of staffing recommendations — 39 combined hires — made by the principals of EOCES and WOCES. The art and music hires increases the total to 41.
“They object to us dismissing faculty and staff, but that wasn’t us — that’s the conservator. We’re still closing two (previously) failing schools. If we have to keep both schools open and retain all the employees, then there’s no reason to consolidate,” Holloway said. “For the teachers we’re hiring, we are going to always hire the best we can find, regardless of what color they are. Any good teacher is going to have a job.”
The DOJ, in its response, said it will continue to monitor SOCSD staffing issues in the future.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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