Judge OKs Richland schools' consent order
On Monday, Federal Judge Robbie James approved a consent order for Richland Parish School Board and Delhi Charter School.
The board approved the plan with a 6-3 vote at a special session on Jan. 14.
Remedial measures listed by the consent decree are changes to student assignment and changes to faculty and staff assignment.
The changes will begin affecting students in the 2016-17 school year.
The district and DCS must provide the court detailed reports on student enrollment and staffing on Oct. 15 of each year of the consent order. If the district and DCS meet their obligations, they may receive a declaration of unitary status no sooner than 60 days after the Oct. 15, 2017 report.
Neville group files motion in deseg case
Student assignment
According to the order, the district operates 11 schools that serve 3,099 students: 54 percent are black, 44 percent are white and 2 percent are other races. DCS operates one school that serves grades K-12. In 2015-16, DCS enrolled 850 students: 65 percent white, 30 percent black and 5 percent other. In 2015-16, 443 of DCS’s enrolled students resided in Richland Parish, 62 percent are white, 31 percent are black, and 7 percent are other.
The order reads: "Ten of the district’s 11 schools have student enrollments that are more than 20 percent different from the districtwide average. DCS’s student enrollment is majority white, while it is located in the Delhi attendance zone, which has a majority black population. As a result, the parties have agreed to modify the Richland Parish School System’s student attendance zones and DCS admissions and transfer criteria in a manner designed to eliminate vestiges of the prior dual school system."
In the Delhi school zone, Delhi Elementary School and DCS will have a shared open house for kindergartners, and there will be one application for incoming kindergarteners. Parents will give the race of the child and can specify which school they'd prefer their child attend. The assignments will be determined by lottery, taking families preferences into account in a way consistent with the consent order. If DCS has additional openings for kindergarteners after the lottery, it can enroll students living outside the Delhi zone or the parish in the following order: (1) black students; (2) siblings of current students; (3) white and other race students.
Additionally, students from other Richland Parish Schools will not be able to transfer to DCS unless the student is transferring from a school where his race is the majority to an institution where his race is the minority. The district will permit and even encourage students to make such majority-to-minority transfers. These measures do not prevent DCS employees from enrolling their own children in DCS at any time.
The district and DCS agreed to assign students to classrooms in ways that don't segregate or discriminate on race, color or national origin, and DCS has agreed to work to to include black people on its board of directors and advisory committees and increase efforts to include black individuals that live in the Delhi School zone. The district will explore opportunities to create a magnet program at Delhi Elementary.
Faculty and staff assignment
By May 1, the district must submit a plan to the U.S. Department of Justice that assigns faculty and staff in ways that correlate with student enrollments in rezoned schools. The assignments should not designate the school as being for a particular race.
DCS will develop a plan to recruit and hire black faculty and staff and provide professional development and training so staff can ensure the environment is welcoming for all students.
Follow Bonnie Bolden on Twitter @Bonnie_Bolden_ and on Facebook at http://on.fb.me/1RtsEEP.
Other stories by Bonnie Bolden: