Louisiana school board approves federal desegregation plan
After an hour of deliberation, the Jefferson Parish School Board unanimously approved a controversial federal desegregation order that aims to stamp out racial inequalities but touched off a firestorm among parents, who turned out in droves this week to protest proposed redistricting changes and a stricter student transfer policy. “There are a lot of things I don't like, board members don't like, the attorneys don't like, the plaintiffs don't like,” board member Gene Katsanis said. “But we've all come to a very reasonable agreement on this. So I'm going to vote for it.” Board member Etta Licciardi recalled the hours of hard work that went into crafting the consent decree, describing the process as one in which both sides kept moving toward an acceptable middle ground. As many as 4,000 public school students could shift to different schools under the order's revised attendance boundaries: about 9 percent of the 44,000 who attend district schools, officials said. That number does not take into account those students who could be forced to switch schools because of changes to the district's transfer permit policy. Currently, about 3,000 students are on permit in Jefferson Parish, meaning they received special permission to attend a school outside their home district. The board was able to gain an eleventh-hour concession, which allows fourth-graders affected by the new attendance zones to be grandfathered in. This would enable them to remain at their current school and finish fifth grade there. The order already allows high school students in 10th and 11th grades to remain at their current schools. Board member Ellen Kovach cited the amendment as proof that the board was listening at the public hearing, where a number of parents blasted the decree. “Unfortunately, some things we had to compromise on,” she said. “But voices last night were heard.”
Joe Potts, president of the Jefferson Parish Teachers Federation, also addressed the board to express his concerns on behalf of the union. Teachers questioned the order's treatment of faculty assignments, and attorneys had failed to communicate the details of the decree to any union representatives, he said. “We've been in the dark,” he said. “We're quite perplexed by that.” The order specifies that teachers with advanced degrees and certification will be assigned in an effort to achieve an equal distribution across the parish. Furthermore, the annual job fair, which is traditionally used to recruit teachers, will no longer be conducted and Superintendent Diane Roussel will maintain exclusive rights to make faculty assignments over the next two years. Roussel said that a process for rerouting teachers is still being developed. But she pledged to Potts that she would avoid any wholesale transfers, making the transition "the least disruptive" possible, while still adhering to the order. Now that the consent order has been accepted by the board, it will go before a federal judge for final approval. That hearing is scheduled for March 14 in U.S. District Court.
Source: New Orleans Time-Picayune, 2/20/08, By Jenny Hurwitz
[Editor’s Note: In an earlier article the Times-Picayune reported that almost two-thirds of Louisiana’s school districts still fall under federal court supervision to ensure a racial mix in schools, 43 years after the first desegregation case in the state was brought. An excerpt of that article is below.]
NSBA School Law pages on court supervised desegregation in Louisiana