DALLAS - The 136-student Lake View School District in Arkansas missed an April 1 deadline to present a district consolidation proposal to the state and instead sent the Board of Education a letter stating that it does not intend to comply with new laws requiring school districts with 350 students or less to be annexed by larger districts or consolidate with other small districts.
"In order to protect the constitutional rights of its students to equitable and adequate means for accessing opportunities to receive a viable, functional, and wholesome educational experience, this district cannot and will not submit to unfair laws passed by the state of Arkansas," stated the letter, which was signed by Lake View superintendent Clausey Myton, school board president Henrietta Wilson, and school board members Irma Morehouse and Everlene R. Tucker.
The letter added that the new laws, "are a continuation of the constant, never-ceasing legacy of the state of Arkansas policy to 'do harm' to institutions of color and persons of color.... The district has not waged a 14-year fight for equal treatment under the law for the purpose of kowtowing to the newest manifestation of state discrimination."
The new laws were written in response to a November 2002 order against the state by the Arkansas Supreme Court to write new school finance laws that would infuse more money into public education and distribute it more equitably. That lawsuit, which became a class action involving most of the state's school districts -- numbering 310 in 1996 -- was first filed by the Lake View district in 1992.
Although the General Assembly in February approved a slate of bills that in addition to consolidation include increases in property taxes and sales taxes, lawmakers have not yet tackled other pieces of the court order that mandate more money for capital facilities.
The consolidation component of the law requires 57 small Arkansas school districts to find merger partners in an effort to reduce administrative costs. Fifty of those districts were able to find merger partners, with 30 petitions presented to the state outlining the annexation of one or two small districts by larger districts and 11 proposals to merge two or more small districts into one larger district.
The Board of Education will review the petitions by June 1, and, if approved, the reorganized districts would begin operating by July 1.
The board will write its own consolidation plans for districts that were unable to find willing merger partners. Those districts, in addition to Lake View, are Biggers-Reyno, Carthage, Delaplaine, Holly Grove, Huttig, and Sparkman.
The districts said they were road-blocked by low funding and property values that have caused their programfunding and teacher salaries to be lower than state averages. They say that wealthier districts told them they simply couldn't take the chance that state funding would fall short of bringing them up to acceptable levels, thereby diluting funding for their existing student bases.
Some of the small districts, which are members of the Arkansas Rural Education Association, say they are angry that they had no say in the merger law because of their small population size. About 2% of the state's voters live there. They are considering a plan to ask the U.S. Office of Civil Rights to intervene to halt the mergers.
Bill Lewellen, a lawyer who represented Lake View in its original 1992 lawsuit, said he may file a federal lawsuit alleging racial discrimination, in an effort to stop consolidation momentum. Lewellen no longer represents Lake View but continues to be a party to the lawsuit.
Lake View, which last week tried to hammer together a merger agreement with five districts located as far as 160 miles away, stated in its letter to the state board, "Lake View School District won its lawsuit, and we are entitled to educational funding, not destruction."
The district had initially sought mergers with the Barton-Lexa, Elaine, Gould, Grady, Helena/West Helena, Holly Grove, and Marvell districts, but when those proposals went nowhere, district officials last week sent annexation proposals to the Fayetteville, Forrest City, Marion, Rogers, and Springdale school districts.
The proposed district annexations sent to the state by school districts are: Alread into Clinton, Altus-Denning into Ozark, Arkansas City into McGehee, Bright Star into Fouke, Cotton Plant into Augusta, Crawfordsville into Earle, Delta Special into McGehee, Emmet into Blevins, Evening Shade into Cave City, Fountain Hill into Hamburg, Gillette into DeWitt, Hatfield into Mena, Humphrey into DeWitt, Kingston and Oark into Jasper, Leslie into Marshall, McNeil into Stephens, McRae into Beebe, Mt. Holly into Parkers Chapel, Mt. Pleasant into Melbourne, Paron into Bryant, Pleasant View into Mulberry, Rural Special and Stone County into Mountain View, Saratoga into Mineral Springs, Scotland into Clinton, St. Paul into Huntsville, Swifton into Jackson County, Umpire into Wickes, Walker into Magnolia, Wilburn into Concord, and Winslow into Greenland.
Consolidation proposals were Bruno-Pyatt (Marion Co. SD) with St. Joe and Western Grove, Cord-Charlotte with Newark, Deer with Mt. Judea, Gould with Grady, Kingsland with Rison, Lynn with River Valley, Oden with Acorn, Randolph County with Williford, Taylor with Emerson, and Union with Norphlet.
In addition, the Fourche Valley and Plainview-Rover districts have asked the state to allow them to merge with the Ola School District, which will be annexed by the Perry-Casa School District at the beginning of the 2004-2005 school year under an agreement approved by both of those school boards and by local voters.
