Department of Justice and Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District officials appear to have reached an agreement on a permanent desegregation order for the school system, and both sides’ attorneys have asked a federal judge to approve the new document.
Court records show DOJ and SOCSD filed a joint motion in federal court Tuesday asking Judge Michael P. Mills to approve the new operational guidepost.
The new order was not present on the court system’s public records database, and SOCSD Superintendent Lewis Holloway said he was advised by counsel not to comment on the document’s specifics until it was approved by a judge.
Mills could sign off on the agreement Friday, the same date listed as the deadline for both sides to file their respective desegregation orders.
Holloway did, however, confirm the two groups have come to an agreement and said the district’s recent proposal to bring students in to city campuses from East Elementary School, located in the outlying county area, “had a significant amount to do with” the joint filing.
Last year, the court approved a temporary desegregation order for the 2015-2016 academic year. Both the DOJ and SOCSD agreed to work together to write a permanent order by Friday’s court-mandated deadline.
The temporary desegregation order solidified proposed school attendance zones and stated future site selections for new school construction or the consolidation of campuses “shall be done in a manner which will prevent the recurrence of the dual school structure.”
The DOJ previously objected to operating East Elementary School with an expected 94 percent African-American enrollment — the same percentage operated by the former Oktibbeha County School District — and separating former county and city school district sixth graders at different campuses.
The district previously solved the sixth-grade issue by increasing capacity at Armstrong Middle School with mobile classrooms. A proposed grades 6-7 partnership school with Mississippi State University would, once built, educate all countywide students.
Last month, SOCSD administrators tackled the East Elementary issue by proposing to bring in its kindergarten through fifth grade students to city middle schools beginning in August.
The proposed plan includes moving rising fifth graders to Overstreet Elementary and rising second graders to Ward Stewart Elementary. The district’s alternative education program housed at Overstreet would then move to East Elementary. Sudduth Elementary would become a kindergarten and first grade campus, while Henderson Elementary and Ward Stewart would service grades 2-4.
West Elementary School would not be impacted in the new attendance zones and school structure.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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