Original article on The Morning News here

Benjamin Lynch Sr., one of about 20 parents named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said the ordeal has hurt his family and the Magnet Cove community.

“This is devastating to the parents,” the father said. “My son has been attending Magnet Cove since kindergarten and now he’s been forced out.”

He said he and his wife moved to the Butterfield Community in Hot Spring County years ago to live on property his mother’s family once owned.

“We moved here because we were in the Magnet Cove School District,” he said, adding he was told he had a choice whether his son attended the 747-student Magnet Cove district or the 2,213-student Malvern district because school buses from both districts stopped near his home to pick up children.

The Lynches live much closer to Magnet Cove High School than Malvern High, he said.

“This is really not fair to the student,” the elder Lynch said, adding he was concerned about reports of violence in the Malvern district and that the district has in the past been on academic probation.

Malvern School Superintendent Brian Golden could not be reached for comment last week, but he told the Malvern Daily Record last month that Malvern school officials decided to go after students in neighboring districts who should be attending school in Malvern because the district loses $5,789 in state funding for each student it should have but does not.

“I’m just trying to protect the school district,” Golden told the newspaper. “That’s a lot of budget money.”

The superintendent said the district has slowly been losing students to other districts over the past decade and the problem is getting worse. Some students are trickling back to the district when they learn attending school outside the district where they live is against the law, he said.

Arkansas’ school choice law allows a student to apply for a transfer to a school district outside of the district in which he or she lives. However, but as a safeguard against racial segregation, the law prohibits a student from transferring to a district where the percentage of the student’s race exceeds the percentage in the student’s home district, with some exceptions.

Parents of students attending school in other districts face up to a $500 fine if their primary residence is inside the Malvern District.

Earlier this year, state lawmakers said they may have to revisit the law during the 2009 legislative session because of a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that school choice plans in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., were unconstitutional because of their reliance on race-based criteria.

The lawsuit filed last week by Hot Springs attorney Andie Davis on behalf of the parents asks a judge to declare the School Choice Act of 1989 unconstitutional because it makes race the sole factor in determining whether a student can transfer.

The Malvern district has a 35 percent minority enrollment, while Glen Rose, Magnet Cove, Ouachita and Poyen have lower percentages of minority students.

Magnet Cove School Superintendent Gail McClure said she received three letters from Golden, the first in early September, informing her that as many as 80 students may be attending school there illegally.

McClure said she later determined that most of the students are legally attending schools in Magnet Cove but as many as 10 could still end up having to transfer to Malvern.

“This really came out of the blue,” McClure said, though she acknowledged that on occasion she discovers students living within her district who are attending school elsewhere and she files paperwork to get them back.

Last year, two students attending school in Malvern had to change districts because they live in Magnet Cove.

To avoid transfers, some parents have rented homes and moved, while others have purchased trailers and moved next to family who do live in the Magnet Cove school system, McClure said.

The families of the students in question also received letters from the Laser Law Firm in Little Rock, which was hired by the Malvern School District, to get the students back.

The letter said the Malvern district “is potentially losing thousands of dollars to this problem, and it is now required to insist that any child who should be attending the Malvern School District, but is not, return immediately to the Malvern School District.”

Dan Farley, executive director of the Arkansas School Boards Association, said it’s not unusual for a district to claim one or two students are attending school outside the district illegally, but he’s “never seen it on this scale.”

“This does pop up occasionally and the primary reason is it affects the school district’s funding,” Farley said, adding that students who want to attend another district must apply and complete paperwork.

By Elizabeth Pannell

Original article on Arkansas Online.com here .

LITTLE ROCK — Malvern parent Dar r in Hardy said despite U.S. Magistrate Barry Bryant’s recommendation to uphold the state’s School Choice Act, his daughter “will not go to school in the Malvern School District.”

Hardy and about 40 other parents of students filed a motion for preliminary injunction in October to prevent the Malvern School District from forcing their children to return to the district until the lawsuit they filed in U.S. District Court in Hot Springs is resolved.

Malvern Superintendent Brian Golden sent letters to approximately 100 students this year who live in the Malvern School District but who are illegally attending other districts.

The lawsuit by parent s challenges the School Choice Act of 1989, which states students may not transfer out of a district if it would lead to racial segregation. Malvern School District is 35 percent minority compared with the other schools the students are attending - Glen Rose, Ouachita and Magnet Cove - which are nearly all white.

In Bryant’s recommendation to Federal Judge Robert T. Dawson of Fort Smith, he said the plaintiffs have not met their burden of establishing that the students suffer from the threat of irreparable harm if they return to the Malvern School District.

Before Dawson makes his decision on the case, both parties have 10 days to file an objection.

Andi Davis, the Hot Springs attorney representing the parents, said she will file an objection to Bryant’s recommendation.

“I respect his opinion, but there are a few of his ideas that we disagree with,” Davis said. “I hope to file the objection with the federal judge by Monday, then we should hear what he says within a few days.”

Hardy, whose fifth-grader attends a private school in Malvern, tried to get a legal transfer. He said he plans to file a lawsuit against the district for ask ing him to prove his American Indian heritage.

“We filled out the schoolchoice forms, and we are probably going to file suit against Malvern for asking us to prove we are Native American,” Hardy said. “No one else has to prove it; it’s racism.”<span class="inset-left">Malvern parent: Daughter won’t go to Malvern, considering another lawsuit</span>

During t he November hearing and in signed affidavits, parents said their children are being forced into the Malvern district, which is on the state’s school improvement list for lack of adequate yearly progress on the Benchmark exams. They also said they are being forced totransfer to the Malvern district from other districts that their children have attended for a long period of time.

During the November hearing, Superintendent Brian Golden testified that his district is in school improvement at t wo levels : seventh- and eighth-grade literacy in the African-American sub-population and in 11th grade literacy for the combined scores. The school is not in school improvement at grade levels kindergarten through sixth grade or 12th grade, he said.

The district loses approximately $ 5,700 per student, which amounts to “hundreds of thousands of dollars ,”Golden said. He also said a later interview that it is his “statutory responsibility” to try to regain those students he knows are illegally attending other schools.

He also said the district provides a strong academic curriculum, including advanced-placement courses.

Golden said, “We were pleased with [Bryant’s] decision. It just reaffirms what we believe - we were doing the right thing. We will await confirmation from Judge Dawson and we will go from there.”

Davis said the motion to dismiss the lawsuit presented by the Malvern district will be the next step; if the motion does not pass, the trial will follow. Davis said if there is a trial it will be six to nine months out.

Hardy said the group of parent s w ill meet Monday with Davis to discuss their options and the next steps in the trial process. He said the group will also begin planning other fund raising projects that will be used to pay attorney fees.
This article was published Sunday, December 7, 2008.

Tri-Lakes, Pages 111, 112 on 12/07/2008