Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ared-4_82-cv-00866/USCOURTS-ared-4_82-cv-00866-149/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Civil Rights Act

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

EASTERN DISTRICT OF ARKANSAS 

CENTRAL DIVISION 

LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al. 

No. 4:82-cv-866-DPM 

PULASKI COUNTY SPECIAL SCHOOL 

DISTRICT, JACKSONVILLE/NORTH 

PULASKI SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al. 

EMILY McCLENDON, TAMARA EACKLES, 

VALERIE STALLINGS, TIFFANY ELLIS, 

and LINDA MORGAN 

ORDER 

PLAINTIFFS 

DEFENDANTS 

INTERVENORS 

The Court is attaching Ms. Powell's seventh summary report, 

which covers monitoring matters at PCSSD. NQ 5502 at 2-3. The 

Court appreciates her work. 

So Ordered. 

D .P. Marshall {r. 

United States District Judge 

Case 4:82-cv-00866-DPM Document 5559 Filed 01/10/20 Page 1 of 5
UPDATE ON THF: STATUS OF THE PULASKI COUNTY SPECIAL SCHOOL 

DISTRICT'S IMPLEMENTATION OF PLAN 2000 - MONITORING 

On July 18, 2019, Chief U.S. Distlict Judge D. Price Marshall, Jr., directed the Court Expert to 

issue written status reports on the remaining areas of the Pulaski County Special School 

District's (PCSSD) desegregation plan (Plan 2000) that still remain under Court supervision. 

(Doc 5502). 'This report is number seven of eight. 

MONITORING (Plan 2000-Section N) 

Note: Although the Joshua Intervenors have been renamed the McClendon Intervenors, for 

clarity, this report uses the original names and titles.found in Plan 2000. 

PLAN PROVISION 

The Assistant Supc~rintendent fi.1r Desegregation shall: (i) develop a plan so that he (or she) and 

his (or her) staff focus their monitoring and compliance efforts on the specific elements of the 

Plan; and (ii) provide the Joshua Intervenors within 30 days of the court's approval of this Plan a 

list, geared to the sections of this Plan, identifying the staff member or members with particular 

responsibilities for its implementation and the position held by each. N(l), pg.7 

BACKGROUND 

On October 29, 2007, the PCSSD petitioned the comi for full unitary stah1s. The petition was 

heard from March l through March 18, 2010. On May 19, 2011, the court granted PCS SD 

unitary status in several areas: student assignment, interdistrict schools, multicultural education, 

and school resources. The district has since been declared unitary with respect to advanced 

placement and the gifted and talented honors programs, scholarships, special education, and staff. 

The district was found partially unitary in Monitming. The court's findings under Section N, 

subsection ( 1 ), read in part; " .. .it is clear that Pulaski County has not complied in good faith with 

the requirements of subsection one. This is the case because it failed to timely submit the 

required documents to Joshua; it took more than two years to adopt a monitoring pla.n, and the 

monitoring plan it finally submitted was rejected outright by the ODM as woefully inadequate." 

Findings 

According to the Assistant Superintendent for Equity and Pupil Services, the PCSSD 

presents its annual monitoring report to the school board each August and sends a written 

copy of the Board report to Joshua. 

0 ODM's status reports on the PCSSD's compliance with Plan 2000 indicated that it 

wasn't until 2008 that the district "produced a monitoring report that tied observations 

and findings to the provisions of Plan 2000." The ODM report also noted the document 

was "a significant improvement over the previous monitoring reports submitted after Plan 

2000 was approved." 

• An exarnination of the district's monitoring reports for the past three years reveal that 

little has changed with respect to the format. Most of the entries show what the 

Case 4:82-cv-00866-DPM Document 5559 Filed 01/10/20 Page 2 of 5
monitoring has revealed in each area, but show little detail with respect to corrective 

actions or interventions where problems were found. 

The PCSSD has a new monitoring tool that should greatly improve its monitoring 

processes and possibly eliminate most, if not all, of the shortcomings found in past 

monitoring rcpo1is. 

The Coordinator of Equity Initiatives points out that the new repo1ting process focuses on 

the multicultural aspects of each area of Plan 2000. The new monitoring tool: 

"Educational Equity School Monitoring" combines several sections of Plan 2000, 

resulting in the following; Elementary Equity Report; Secondary Equity Report; and 

School Profile Report 

The response and observation forms are detailed and verifiable. As a result, district 

officials and school personnel can examine each element of the educational process in a 

school to determine where there are problems and then make a plan to address the area(s) 

in question .. 

The site-based equity monitoring team in each school collects information based on: 

classroom observations, school data (test scores, diverse staff, documentation that black 

students are recrnited for Advanced Placement, programs developed and implemented to 

decrease achievement differences between black and non-black students), and many other 

Plan related actions. 

Should a school's report show deficiencies in any area(s), the school is placed on Alert 

Status. The school's administration must develop a "clear, concise well-written Action 

Pla..'1 for specific improvement." 

" A year 1 Alert Status goes to the school principal and requires a meeting with the school 

equity committee. The district's equity committee will provide assistance and give 

directions to help school personnel to con-ect the problem(s) identified in the monitoring 

rep011. 

" A year 2 Alert Status would require that the school administrators send all pertinent 

information relating to the identified problem area(s) to the District Equity Committee for 

review and assistance. 

A year 3 Alert would require the Coordinator of Equity Initiatives to provide specific 

training for the building's equity committee and the school staff. Later in the school year, 

all of the parties participate in a walk-through of the facility noting the effects of the 

interventions implemented after the training. 

PLAN PROVISION 

Upon Reasonable notice, the Joshua Intervenors shall have the opportunity: (i) to examine and 

secure copies of records relating to the PCSSD's compliance with this Plan, including records 

identified in the Plan, and (ii) to meet with the Assistant Superintendent for Desegregation or a 

staff member responsible for a particular part of the implementation of the Plan. N(2), Pg 7 

Note: In his May 19, 201 l ruling, Judge Miller wrote: "PCSSD has acted in good faith to 

substant;alfv comply with this subsection. However, PCSSD is not relieved of its duty to 

continue implementing this provision in good faith until it is declared entirely unitary and 

excused.fhnn supervision. " 

Case 4:82-cv-00866-DPM Document 5559 Filed 01/10/20 Page 3 of 5
Findings 

0 There is no evidence that the PCS SD bas not complied with this subsection of Plan 2000. 

PLAN PROVISION 

The PCSSD shall submit statistical rep011s showing the following: 

(a) The enrollment in each school by race; 

(b) The enrollment in gifted and talented programs, honors programs, and advanced 

placement classes, by school and race; 

( c) The make~up of special education programs:(i) by disability category, including 

Section 504, by race, and by sex; and (ii) by school, by race, and by sex; provided 

that the system may comply with this reporting requirement by providing copies 

of materials submitted to ADE, as long as they include all information designated 

in this paragraph; 

(d) For each school system, the number of instances of each form of discipline, by 

race and by sex; or each school and the system, the number of students receiving 

each fonn of discipline, by race and by sex.; 

{e) The racial make-up, in each school, of (i) the administrators, (ii) the faculty, (iii) 

other professional staff: and (iv) support staff; 

(f) The racial make-up, by category, of the various categories of administrators, 

faculty, support staff, and other workers employed in the PCSSD. 

The information in all sub-paragraphs other than sub-paragraph (d) shall be submitted not later 

than November 1 of each year, and the information in sub-paragraph (d) twice a year, not later 

than 30 days afl:er the end of each semester. 

Note: In his lvlay 19, 2011 ruling, Judge ,\;filler wrote: "The evidence thus indicates that Pulaski 

County is unitary ·with respect to subsection three. This does not, however, relieve Pulaski 

County of ifs duly to continue implementing this provision in good faith until it is declared 

entirely unitll!y and excused.from court supervision. " 

Fhulings 

0 The PCSSD continues to submit the statistical reports required under Plan 2000. All of 

them are required by the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE). 

COMMENTS 

As a former monitor for the Office of Desegregation Monitoring (ODM), I can understand how 

difficult "monitoring" can be. W11en the ODM first got started, our team noted that there were no 

real definitions of what "monitoring" meant. We had to visit other states to get an idea of how 

other monitors were reporting their information. We found there were no two monitoring teams 

alike and that the Pulaski Cmmty's school desegregation case was the only one of its kind. There 

are no desegregation monitoring manuals to work from. AH of the parties to the Pulaski County 

school desegregation case (LRSD, NLRD, and PCSSD) modeled their reports based on the 

reporting guidelines of the ADE. Unfortunately, those kinds ofrepmts fell sho1t on the kinds of 

details needed to evaluate compliance with the areas in Plan 2000 that were (and still are) under 

court supervision 

Case 4:82-cv-00866-DPM Document 5559 Filed 01/10/20 Page 4 of 5
The Office of Desegregation's (ODM) monitoring report on the PCSSD's compliance with Plan 

2000, filed on June 3, 2014, noted the following: "The PCSSD continues to monitor the areas in 

Plan 2000 still under Court supervision." The report also states: "Except for data updates, the 

report remains virtually unchanged from year to year." Since that report, the district's reports 

have been fleshed out somewhat, but still are not very detailed. 

Plan 2000 is twenty years old, and information gathering and methods used to interpret data has 

changed considerably. Schools have tools and ways of gathering and processing information that 

were not available when the Plan was written. Virtually every element of the educational process 

has an on.line component. Fortunately, the PCSSD has progressed into the new era ofinformation 

gathering and data processing, and has a new monitoring tool; Educational Equity School 

Monitoring. This new computer program has promises of being a real game ch,mger. The new 

monitoring reports have more detailed jnfonnation reflecting the school's entire educational 

process and, the report has an equity focus in each area examined. School personnel no longer 

have to wait until the end of the school year to modify or eliminate programs, practices, or 

interventions that are not working. In the PCSSD, if an updated monitoring report is needed 

today, it's available today. 

Case 4:82-cv-00866-DPM Document 5559 Filed 01/10/20 Page 5 of 5