6/22/04 -- As small Arkansas schools scramble to get their consolidation plans approved by a July 1 deadline, several districts are suing the state to stop the process.
U.S. District Judge George Howard Jr. declined to issue a temporary restraining order to halt the consolidations, but did not rule on the merits of the lawsuit.
Former state Sen. Bill Lewellen had filed the suit June 3 on behalf of a group of small school districts charging the forced consolidation plan approved by the state legislature is unconstitutional.
School funding inadequate
Lewellen is the attorney who represented the tiny Lake View school district and other small, mostly minority districts in a successful funding adequacy lawsuit challenging the state's school funding system.
The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled in 2001 in the Lake View case that the state's funding system was inequitable and inadequate.
To pay for a plan to provide more state funding to the schools, the legislature approved a new funding formula and $370 million in new taxes, but various proposals to consolidate the state's smallest school districts dominated the legislative session.
Gov. Mike Huckabee proposed an extensive consolidation plan that would have eliminated school districts with fewer than 1,500 students, but the legislature eventually approved a compromise requiring the state's 57 districts with fewer than 350 students to merge with other districts. If districts don't come up with an acceptable consolidation plan by July 1, the state board of education will make the decision for them.
The anti-consolidation suit, filed by 20 school districts, seven community groups, and nearly 50 individuals, charges the plan to force small districts to consolidate violates federal equal protection, due process, and voting rights laws and discriminates against minorities.
According to the suit, "forced consolidation . . . has no rational basis or relationship" to the state's ability to comply with court-ordered mandates to establish a constitutional funding system."
Huckabee, one of the defendants in the lawsuit along with the state board of education and legislative leaders, called it "a misguided lawsuit focused on protecting schools instead of focusing on children, which has been our battle all along," according to a June 4 Associated Press report.
Local residents unhappy
Gene Ross, superintendent of the 310-student Emmett School District, one of the plaintiffs, says:"We felt [the 350 student limit] was an arbitrary number. It has nothing to do with the financial condition of the district, the condition of the facilities, or the quality of the education program."
Ross says the Emmett district, in rural southwestern Arkansas, has two new schools, no debt, and offers 57 credits in high school while the state requires only 38. Even though it is a tiny district, it offers a band program and prekindergarten for 4-year-olds.
Local residents were "really upset" about the prospect of consolidation, Ross says. "We knew we had good schools."
During the debates on consolidation in the state legislature, the Arkansas School Boards Association took the position that "consolidation should be based on standards, not an arbitrary number," says Executive Director Dan Farley.
Once the law was passed, the association put together workshops to help affected school boards comply with the new law and decide whether to seek a merger or annexation.
While Emmett had signed on to the lawsuit months ago, it continued to explore various options for consolidation.
Ross says the school board approved a plan to merge with the 470-student Blevins school district, because it was the only nearby district interested in consolidating with Emmett that agreed to keep Emmett's schools open. Ninety-five percent of the residents voted to go with Blevins.
Ross says the only savings would be the $65,000 salary of one of the superintendents. All of the principals and teachers would remain.
"At this point, we're part of the lawsuit but we're going ahead with consolidation," Ross says. "If we don't make a choice, the state board will make the choice for us."
Jimmy Cunningham, president of the Rural Arkansas Education Association and superintendent of the Plainview-Rover school district, agrees that consolidation won't save any money.
In fact, consolidated districts that had different salary schedules will likely have to raise the salaries of the lowest-paid teachers to equalize the pay scale throughout the new district.
A new state law raises the minimum starting salaries of teachers from $21,860 to $27,500.
Voting rights violated
Cunningham says his district joined the lawsuit because the consolidation law is "disenfranchising communities."
The commingling of tax money resulting from consolidation is a voting rights issue, he says. "Tax money voted on by my district will be used by another district."
Plainview-Rover is involved in a complicated scheme involving the merger of three other districts -- Ola, Perry-Casa, and Fourche Valley -- that will result in the creation of a new 1,100-student district called Two Rivers. The new district will absorb all the debt and all the teacher contracts.
Since Ola is the largest district, with 525 students, it will have more members on the interim school board and will keep its superintendent, Cunningham says. The other superintendents will become assistant superintendents.
Cunningham thinks there's a "good chance" the lawsuit will succeed. Meanwhile, district officials are working on consolidating salary schedules, personnel policies, student handbooks, and budgets.
He notes it is ironic that the 160-student Lake View district, which initiated the adequacy lawsuit, could be eliminated.
"They were allowed to exist when the state's funding system was unconstitutional," Cunningham says. "Why can't they exist under a constitutional system?"
No other districts wanted to consolidate with Lake View, says Superintendent Clausey Myton, so the state board of education is forcing it to merge with the 720-student Barton-Lexa district, which is 68 percent white.
Myton says there will be only one school board member from Lake View on the new school board, compared to six from Barton-Lexa. He expects Lake View's two schools will eventually be closed.
He concedes that with only three students in Lake View's first-grade class and five kindergartners -- with a teacher for each grade -- a larger school would be more efficient.
He says the community of Lake View accepts the prospect of consolidation, but the school board vows to fight it and is considering joining other mostly minority districts in another lawsuit to block the consolidation law.
According to Myton, Barton-Lexa school officials and residents are concerned about the influx of Lake View students lowering their test score averages.
Similar situations are being played out across the state. "The ramifications are deep and intense," Farley notes. "There are bitter feelings on both sides."
Farley calls it a "huge misconception that consolidation would save money." He quotes Larry Anden, one of the consultants who carried out a study for the state on adequacy, as saying, "Never in the history of the world has consolidation saved any money."
That study estimated it would cost $800 million to adequately fund all the state's public schools.
Facility needs assessed
Consolidation was viewed by state leaders, however, as more acceptable than raising property taxes. And Farley says there is some merit to the governor's argument that a high school with just 100 students is not as efficient as a larger one.
Following the Lake View ruling, the state legislature ordered a $10 million study of the state's school facilities, which was required by the court.
Farley says that study, expected to be released in November, could set the price tag for facility needs at $1 billion or even $2 billion.
When that happens, "There will be a massive conflict over state spending, with everyone fighting over their slice of the pie," he says. "And there could be a whole new push for more consolidation." And that means districts that have already been consolidated might have to do it again.