SOCSD, Justice Department reach agreement on desegregation order

A joint filing in federal court Wednesday indicates the Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District and the U.S. Department of Justice have come to agreement “regarding all of the terms” of a permanent desegregation order.
The last step needed in finalizing the desegregation order is approval from U.S. District Court Judge Michael P. Mills. If the permanent desegregation order is approved, it would end months of negotiations between the Justice Department and the school district.
For the 2015-16 school year, SOCSD has been operating under a temporary desegregation order that was approved last summer. After the Justice Department took issue with the lack of diversity at East Elementary School, the school district proposed sending all kindergarten through fifth grade students currently zoned for East Elementary to elementary schools in Starkville.
SOCSD Superintendent Lewis Holloway said at last week’s school board meeting the Justice Department was in favor of the proposal. The proposed permanent desegregation order has not been posted online in the federal court’s filing system as of Wednesday afternoon. Aside from the rezoning of East Elementary students, no other major changes were expected in the permanent desegregation order.
The proposed re-zoning will affect schools in Starkville as well, if it is approved. Sudduth Elementary will become a school for kindergarten and first graders; Henderson Ward Stewart will serve second, third and fourth graders. Fifth graders will be moved to Overstreet, currently the alternative school location. The alternative school will be moved to East Elementary. West Elementary was not affected by the proposed rezoning presented by the school district.
“The United States and the Consolidated District (“the Parties”) have worked together on this desegregation order and ask for expedited consideration of their motion so the order may be implemented in time for the 2016-2017 school year,” Wednesday’s court filing reads.
School board members and school district administrators told East Elementary parents that moving students to Starkville was not an easy decision, but it represented the best way for the school district to create its own plan for a more racially-balanced district. School board member Lee Brand alluded to Justice Department proposals that would have sent kids on the same street to different schools.
“We wanted this school to stay,” Holloway said at East Elementary on Feb. 19. “We could fight it, but that means going to court and rolling the dice.”
Many Mississippi school districts are under desegregation orders dating back to the late 1960s and early 1970s, providing federal oversight to school desegregation efforts. Prior to the July 1, 2015 state-mandated consolidation of the Starkville and Oktibbeha County School Districts, both districts remained under a desegregation order. A new desegregation order was needed for the consolidated school district.
As part of negotiations with the Justice Department last summer, the school district amended its consolidation plan to send sixth graders from East and West Elementary to Armstrong Middle School. Following that compromise, the temporary desegregation order was approved.
If the permanent desegregation order is approved, sending East Elementary students to school in Starkville would likely be the final change to consolidation plans caused by Justice Department negotiations. Most of East Elementary’s faculty and staff are expected to have jobs in the school district next year, but officials said they could not guarantee every employee will have a job with them.
“Having gone to the meeting at East Elementary, I don’t think there can be enough said about, in spite of everything going on, how gracious the people were at the meeting,” Brand said last week. “A lot of the questions, I thought were very fair and honest questions. You think of how much change has taken place in that community, then you get another something else beyond your control. I think it well, everything considered. It was a productive meeting.”
Under the school district’s proposed plan, approximately 100 classrooms and offices will have to be moved over the summer and some work will need to be done on school facilities. Assistant Superintendent Jody Woodrum said teachers plan to work to make sure current East Elementary students have some familiar faces with them in class when they begin attending school in Starkville in August.