Opinion ID: 354094
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Acquisition and Sale of School Sites.

Text: 18 On October 11, 1976, following the implementation of the district court's plan to desegregate DISD, the Board of Education of the DISD 20 unanimously resolved that an election be called to authorize the Board to issue $80,000,000 in bonds for school site acquisitions, construction, and equipment. The bond issue passed overwhelmingly in all subdistricts on December 11, 1976. 19 The prior panel had directed the district court 20 to evaluate all of the site acquisition, school construction and facility abandonment plans put forward by the DISD in light of the impact which these undertakings will have upon the disestablishment of the dual school system. Only those projects which will foster the desegregation process should be approved by the district court and such approval should be given only after full hearing and after the making of findings of fact and conclusions of law regarding each such project. 21 517 F.2d at 110. The DISD submitted forty-two plans, including thirty-two site acquisitions and constructions and ten abandonments, to the district court on February 17, 1977, and a hearing was held on February 24. On March 2, the district court approved each of the plans. In appeal No. 77-1752, the NAACP questions the district court's approval of two of these plans: the acquisition of the A. Harris Shopping Center for conversion into a school 21 and the sale of one parcel of unimproved land. The shopping center and the land in question are both located in the East Oak Cliff subdistrict. 22 The A. Harris Shopping Center site occupies twenty-eight acres of land, divided into two tracts by a street. There are 305,000 square feet of existing building space on the eighteen acre tract. The site was purchased by the DISD for approximately $1,800,000, an amount far below what it would cost the DISD to purchase twenty-eight acres and build comparable floor space. 22 The DISD proposed an initial outlay of $500,000 for renovation of the existing structures, with an additional $1,000,000 to be spent over the next five years. 2d Supp.Record, vol. 1, at 29, 167, No. 77-1752. 23 The DISD's plans for the shopping center complex include a K-12 school 23 , facilities to provide a number of education services 24 , and facilities to provide social services 25 . There will also be traditional grade levels K-3, 4-6, 7-8, and 9-12. These different educational operations will be conducted as distinct facilities with separate administrations, teaching staffs, and physical education programs. The DISD anticipates that it will ultimately assign approximately 2,400 students to the traditional K-12 school units. 24 The crux of the NAACP's argument about the shopping center site is that its location in East Oak Cliff, with an attendance zone that encompasses only East Oak Cliff schools, perpetuates school segregation in Dallas. Virtually all of the students to be assigned to the new school will be black. NAACP also raises questions concerning the combination of programs to be implemented in the shopping center site. One of the programs is to be a metropolitan school, an alternative school for troubled students, i. e., those students who experience difficulty in the more traditional school setting. Also raised as grounds for not converting the shopping center to educational use are the traffic problem because of its location near two freeways and the inferiority of the facilities. 26 25 We defer to the DISD's expertise in establishing suitable programs for the school children of Dallas. The long-range plans for the shopping center site include many valuable facets for the education of the community. The DISD has stated that the programs will be separated, the existing structures will be renovated, and unoccupied space will be converted to traditional recreational and playground space suitable for the various grade-level school units. We are remanding this case to the district court for further consideration of its student assignment plan; on remand, the district court is directed to consider assigning Anglo students to the new complex. As the DISD notes, the shopping center site is easily accessible to the entire city. 2d Supp.Record, vol. 1, at 30, No. 77-1752. Time-and-distance studies should emphasize the feasibility of transporting Anglo students to attend school there. 26 The unimproved land in question is located on the southern edge of East Oak Cliff, some twenty-five miles from the northern edge of the DISD. It is therefore isolated from the remaining Anglo students who do not reside in naturally integrated areas. The record also reflects that the site has poor access potential. Given these facts in the record, we find no error in the district court's approval of the sale of this land. 27 The Concerned Citizens of Glenview, a corporation of parents of school children who will be assigned to the shopping center complex under the present student assignment plan, brought a separate action to enjoin construction and renovation of the A. Harris Shopping Center. On May 18, 1977, the district court held a hearing on the Concerned Citizens' request for injunctive relief. At that hearing, the district judge ruled that this case should be dismissed on the basis of the doctrine of virtual representation, i. e., Concerned Citizens was in effect represented by the NAACP when the issue was presented in the Tasby case. The Concerned Citizens claims on appeal that the focus of its suit, that the shopping center facility will be inferior thereby denying the students equal protection of the laws, is different from that of the NAACP, that the use of the shopping center will perpetuate a dual school system. 28 We have considered the adequacy of the proposed shopping center facility in connection with the NAACP's appeal. Our disposition in that case renders moot the appeal of the Concerned Citizens of Glenview.