Intervention sought in school suit

Assistant superintendent in county district files motion in desegregation case

Janice Warren, a former acting superintendent and currently an assistant superintendent in the Pulaski County Special School District, on Wednesday asked to intervene in a federal lawsuit in which the school system is seeking to show it has met its desegregation obligations.

Warren, represented by attorney Sarah Howard Jenkins, submitted the motion to intervene to U.S. District Chief Judge D. Price Marshall Jr., who is the presiding judge in a 37-year-old federal school desegregation lawsuit in which the Pulaski County Special district is a defendant.

The federal judge has scheduled a hearing to start July 14 to determine whether the 12,000-student school system has complied with the terms of its desegregation Plan 2000 in regard to student discipline practices, student achievement, self monitoring of desegregation efforts and the condition of its school buildings.The district is asking to be declared in compliance, or unitary, and released from further court supervision.

Jenkins is also representing Warren in a separate federal employment discrimination lawsuit against the school district leaders.

“Intervention is warranted,” Jenkins wrote on Warren’s behalf to Marshall. That’s because the perfor

mance of Warren and others as members of the district’s top-level administrative team — or cabinet — will be a focus of the upcoming summer hearing to determine whether the district achieved or violated the provisions of its desegregation plan, she said.

“PCSSD’s failure to construct Mills High School and Robinson Middle School in an equitable fashion has been established before this Court,” Jenkins wrote, citing earlier findings from the judge’s desegregation expert about the features of the two schools.

“Given the patent discriminatory results in the construction of Mills High and Robinson Middle facilities, counsel for PCSSD in advocating for PCSSD may enter into settlements and consent decrees rather than litigate the quality of PCSSD’s performance,” Jenkins continued. “While conserving PCSSD’s resources, this approach may fail to protect nonparty-employee interests, such as defending the quality of their performance as it relates to this [case].”

The attorneys for the district are not responsible for defending the individuals such as Warren.

“Any allegation or suggested nonperformance asserted against cabinet members and administrative employees — who did not engage in discriminatory conduct, who had no knowledge of the misappropriation or misapplication of State funds in the construction — that go unanswered becomes a weapon not only against [Warren] in her employment discrimination [lawsuit] but also a weapon against the employment rights of other innocent cabinet members and administrators,” the motion states.

Jenkins argued to the judge that allowing Warren to intervene will not prolong or delay the case “but will facilitate the goals of judicial efficiency and the conservation of judicial resources.”

Warren is the district’s assistant superintendent for equity and student services. While she served as the district’s acting superintendent in the 2017-18 school year, she applied for but was not interviewed by the School Board for the permanent position.