Pinellas, they say, has long lived with court-imposed ratios for their schools. If schools' numbers were outside those ratios, the district had to rezone attendance boundaries. Thus, officials say, it was far easier to include ratios in the Pinellas plan. Those ratios will stay in place until the end of the 2006-2007 school year. The district's most recent count showed 26 schools with black populations in excess of 40 percent and 24 with black populations of less than 10 percent.
Ratios remain the major impediment to negotiations.
School district officials maintain that federal courts no longer allow them once a school district is freed from court supervision. That's where it broke down. Should the School Board approve the plan today, the district will forward it to Judge Kovachevich and ask for approval to implement it. However, the district will not request that she consider whether to release the district from her supervision. Instead it will await a ruling from the 11th Circuit on that issue.