Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District administrators propose bringing kindergarten through fifth grade students attending East Elementary School to city middle schools to satisfy Department of Justice issues with racial diversity at the county campus.
The new attendance plan would begin in August.
School district officials first announced the potential shakeup in an email to stakeholders this week after both SOCSD attorneys and the DOJ asked a federal judge for more time to work out a long-term desegregation order.
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.
“The school board agrees with the Department of Justice that a racially diverse student population is beneficial and advantageous to our district and to our community,” SOCSD Board of Trustees President Eddie Myles said in a release Wednesday. “The first year of consolidation has brought much success and opportunity to students and faculty throughout the district, and we expect to build on that foundation in our second year. This is an exciting time for our schools and our community, and we look forward to sharing more details and information regarding future plans for the district.”
The DOJ’s desegregation plan will be presented during a special-call school board meeting 6 p.m. Tuesday, while informational sessions for stakeholders at the impacted schools are scheduled on the following dates: Thursday for East Elementary faculty and staff (3:30 p.m.) and stakeholders (5:30 p.m.); Monday for Sudduth Elementary faculty and staff (3:30 p.m.) and stakeholders (5:30 p.m.); Tuesday for Henderson elementary faculty and staff (3:30 p.m.); Feb. 25 for Ward Stewart Elementary faculty and staff (3:30 p.m.); Feb. 29 for Henderson and Ward Stewart stakeholders (5:30 p.m.); and March 3 for the executive parent-teacher organization council (11:30 a.m. at the Greensboro Center).
Last week, attorneys asked Judge Michael P. Mills to move the desegregation report’s deadline to March 4. Both DOJ and SOCSD officials are “optimistic they will come to an agreement” on terms, the joint filing states.
If both sides are unable to reach an agreement by that date, then each “will submit proposed orders that reflect areas in which agreement was reached” and separate proposals for the remaining desegregation obligations.
The DOJ previously objected to operating East Elementary with an expected 94 percent African American enrollment — the same percentage operated pre-consolidation by the former Oktibbeha County School District — and separating former county and city school district sixth graders at different campuses.
To solve the sixth-grade issue, administrators increased capacity at Armstrong Middle School with mobile classrooms.
A proposed grades 6-7 partnership school with Mississippi State University would educate all countywide students once built.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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