LITTLE ROCK — A federal magistrate on Monday said a group of parents suing the Malvern School District for trying to round up students improperly attending school elsewhere likely can't win their case.
The parents of at least 45 white students who filed the lawsuit in October had asked the court to prevent Malvern school officials from going after students and the nearby districts where they were enrolled until the lawsuit was resolved.
The parents hoped it would mean their children could stay at the schools of their choice and not be uprooted in the middle of the school year.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry A. Bryant said in his recommendation to a federal judge that the parents have failed to prove their children will suffer "irreparable harm" if they attend Malvern schools, therefore an injunction should not be granted. He also said the parents "likely do not have standing to bring this lawsuit."
In recommending the injunction be denied, he laid the groundwork for students to be forced back to the district.
A federal judge in Fort Smith will take Bryant's recommendation under consideration and issue an order.
The lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of the state's School Choice Act, which has banned school transfers since 1989 if they would lead to further racial segregation.
State education officials are closely monitoring the case, which is thought to be the first federal challenge to the act. It's unclear what the case would mean for school choicein Arkansas if the lawsuit is successful.
Bryant said the students in the lawsuit hadn't proved they had properly applied for transfer under the act and as a result had not been denied transfer because of their race. Parents testified during a previous hearing that they didn't bother with a proper transfer request because they knew it would be denied because their children are white.
The students in the lawsuit have been attending schools with nearly all-white student bodies, despite the provision in the state law that prohibits transfers if it would "adversely affect the desegregation of either district."
Malvern's white enrollment, by contrast, is more racially diverse than those schools, with student population that is about 61 percent white.
If the injunction is denied, as Bryant recommended, it will meanan unknown number of students improperly attending school elsewhere will transfer to Malvern, attorneys in the case said.
"We would certainly like them all to return," said Dan Bufford, a Little Rock attorney representing the Malvern district in the case filed in U.S. District Court in Hot Springs.
He did not know how many students would be affected, but he said Malvern Superintendent Brian Golden will continue trying to boost enrollment by targeting students who have been illegally attending school elsewhere - including the Glen Rose, Magnet Cove and Ouachita districts.
The Malvern district has asked that the case be dismissed.
At least one other district is seeking to join the case on behalf of Malvern to fight for the race provisions, saying eliminating that part of the law would lead to further racial segregation in the state's public schools.
Andi Davis, a Hot Springs attorney representing the parents, said some parents will avoid sending their children to Malvern - a Hot Spring County district that the judge noted in his report as having academic troubles.
Davis said some parents will opt for private schools or home school, while others will move into the geographic boundaries of the schools of their choosing. State officials have said they expect the Legislature to take up school choice when it convenes in January in light of a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that found using race as the only factor in making school assignments to be unconstitutional.
Arkansas, Pages 9, 10 on 12/02/2008