Opinion ID: 2967474
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Magnet-Centered Program

Text: As an initial matter, I note that prior court orders did not countenance implementation of a desegregation plan based primarily on magnet schools. Never was CMS given carte blanche to adopt such a program absent court review and approval. CMS counters that a magnet-centered plan was permissible insofar as the district court approved the establishment of a few experimental optional schools in 1974 as part of a plan utilizing paired elementary schools, satellite BELK v. CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG BOARD OF EDUCATION 49 attendance zones, and a feeder system. See Swann, 379 F. Supp. at 1103-04. What CMS fails to recognize is that optional schools were but a small part of the plan approved in 1974, likely because the district court was very skeptical about their efficacy as a desegregation technique. In the course of its order, the district court noted that the history of optional schools was marked by failure in a number of regards and warned CMS to be cautious in creating them. Id. at 1103. Consequently, CMS began with three experimental optional schools in 1974 and increased the number to only six by the early 1990s. The optional schools created in the wake of the 1974 order placed more emphasis on open or traditional education than normally offered in conventional schools. J.A. XXXII-15,683. The optional schools’ traditional programs offer[ed] an enriched and highly structured education, J.A. XXXII-15,732, whereas the open programs offered a student-centered environment that encouraged [students] to take responsibility for their behavior and for their own learning. J.A. XXXII-15,733. The optional schools approved by the 1974 order were not as diverse and specialized as the magnet school program implemented in 1992. The program suggested by Dr. Stolee offered schools specializing in traditional and open educational methods and created specialized schools featuring the Montessori method; science, mathematics, and technology; foreign language immersion; learning immersion programs for young children; enhanced education for academically gifted students; and communication studies programs. See J.A. XXXII-15730-41. However, both the optional schools and the magnet schools were designed to achieve the same end result—the attraction of students to a school in a particular location by using a specialized curriculum or teaching technique. Thus, Dr. Stolee, in recommending the magnet program in 1992, observed that CMS, via its optional schools, had some experience in such specialized schools. J.A. XXXII-15,580. Despite the district court’s 1970 directive that CMS obtain court approval for material modifications to the court-imposed desegregation plan, the court’s skepticism of optional schools, the approval process that took place in the ensuing years, and Dr. Stolee’s specific recommendation in 1992 that CMS seek court approval for the new magnet schools program, CMS inexplicably chose not to return to the district court to obtain approval of the magnet schools plan. At appel- 50 BELK v. CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG BOARD OF EDUCATION late argument before the entire court, CMS contended that the language in the 1970 order requiring court approval for material departures was superceded by the 1974 order. CMS points to no language in the 1974 order supporting this argument and its repeated citations to and reliance on pre-1974 orders regarding other aspects of this case further call into doubt this new line of argument. Moreover, the 1974 order made clear that [e]xcept as modified herein, all previous orders of court remain in effect. Swann, 379 F. Supp. at 1105 (emphasis added). Hence, the 1970 order’s requirement that CMS obtain leave of court before making any material departure from any specific requirement set out in the order remained binding on school officials. Swann, 311 F. Supp. at 270. Nevertheless, I recognize that magnet schools are frequently used by school districts under a desegregation order, see Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U.S. 267, 272 (1977) (Milliken II) (approving of magnet schools as a desegregation tool), and that the district court encouraged [CMS officials] to use their full ‘know-how’ and resources to attain a desegregated school system, Swann 311 F. Supp. at 269. Indeed, the plaintiff-intervenors’ own expert has touted magnet programs as an effective way to attract sizable numbers of white students to predominately minority schools. David J. Armor, Forced Justice: School Desegregation and the Law 223 (1995). Thus, a magnet schools program, properly implemented, can no doubt be an effective desegregation tool. However, a conclusion that CMS was free to adopt any form of magnet school program it might wish to see in place does not flow from this general proposition. I must forcefully disagree with CMS’s contention that the mention of optional schools in the 1974 order provided legal cover for the implementation of an assignment plan depending almost entirely on magnet schools. The portions of the district court order authorizing optional schools could perhaps be read in isolation as authorizing CMS’s use of magnet schools in more diverse, specialized areas, but the order did not authorize CMS to unilaterally abandon pairing, satellites, and feeders in exchange for a magnet-centered plan. Despite the import of the 1974 order, and without even a nod to the district court, CMS in 1992 abandoned the approved desegregation plan in favor of magnets. By the end of the decade CMS had created fifty-eight magnet programs—a far cry from the six optional schools BELK v. CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG BOARD OF EDUCATION 51 in operation in the school year just prior to the adoption of the Stolee plan. See J.A. XXXIV-16,721-30. CMS describes this abandonment of the prior plan as but an expansion of the approved use of optional schools. Clearly, this expansion was in reality a substantial restructuring and cannot be squared with the unambiguous directives of prior orders.