The lawsuit, filed by Mark Dorosin, an attorney within the University of North Carolina's Center for Civil Rights, also asks the court to conclude the same maintenance of three districts denies at-risk students the opportunity to receive a sound, basic education and asks the court to develop and implement a plan “to remedy the Constitutional violations of its present education delivery mechanism and to ensure that every student in Halifax County is provided the opportunity to receive a sound, basic education.”
The lawsuit filed in Halifax County Civil Court will be the topic of a Tuesday press conference at noon in the board of commissioners room in the Historic Courthouse in Halifax where representatives of the Coalition for Education and Economic Security; the Halifax County Chapter of the NAACP and the state Conference of the NAACP will be present.
Halifax County Board of Commissioners Chairman Vernon Bryant said this afternoon he would reserve comment until he has read the full document and discussed it with fellow commissioners as well as the county attorney.
In a fact sheet on the lawsuit, Dorosin explains the complainants include three parents and grandparents of students within the county school system.
Dorosin sums up the complaint by alleging county commissioners are “failing to meet its obligation to provide the opportunity to receive a sound basic education to all children in Halifax County. The Board is constitutionally obligated to structure a system of public education that meets the qualitative standards established by the North Carolina Supreme Court in Leandro v. State and Hoke County v. State.”
The complaint alleges the county maintains an inefficient three-district system that is a relic of the Jim Crow era, divides the children of Halifax County into the good district and the bad districts along racial lines, and fails to meet the fundamental educational mandates recognized by the North Carolina Supreme Court and established by the North Carolina Constitution. “By maintaining an educational delivery system that is inadequately and inefficiently resourced and racially fragmented, the board has created an insurmountable impediment to all Halifax County students’ ability to secure the opportunity to receive a sound basic education.”
In reviewing the factual background of the case, Dorosin says three racially-disparate and inadequately-resourced school districts fail to deliver an opportunity for every student in Halifax County to receive a sound and basic education. “A Constitutionally adequate education system provides a student with at least sufficient ability to read, write, and speak the English language and sufficient knowledge of fundamental mathematics and physical science to enable the student to function in a complex and rapidly changing society.”
The document says that same educational system should provide sufficient fundamental knowledge of geography, history, and basic economic and political systems to enable the student to make informed choices regarding issues that affect the student personally or that affect the student’s community, state, and nation and that they should have access to sufficient academic and vocational skills to enable them to successfully engage in post-secondary education or vocational training and to compete on an equal basis with others in further formal education or in gaining employment in contemporary society. “Whether a system provides students with a sound basic education is measured by, among other things, the educational outputs of the students within that system, which include but are not limited to achievement on standardized tests exams and end-of-course exams, dropout and graduation rates, and the attainment of post-secondary educational or employment opportunities.”
Dorosin notes in Halifax County three separate school districts serve fewer than 7,000 students, forcing the districts to compete for limited educational resources and causing the county to incur duplicative costs.
The population of Halifax County is 40.3 percent white and 53.9 percent black or multiracial as of 2013, the notes say, “Yet the three districts are racially identifiable as either white or black districts.”
As of this year the county school system population is 85 percent black and 4 percent white. Weldon's is 94 percent black and 4 percent white while Roanoke Rapids is 26 percent black and 65 percent white.
The county school system ranks 115th out of 115 total school districts in North Carolina on statewide composite End of Grade and End of Course exams.
For composite grade 3-8 EOG/EOCs, Weldon ranks 114th, and Roanoke Rapids ranks 70th.
Test scores of students in the county system and Weldon, which Dorosin calls the black districts, are consistently lower than those of students in RRGSD, which he calls the white district, though the students in RRGSD often have test scores below the state average.
“Students in the black districts experience higher rates of suspension than in the white district, and therefore have less access to learning time,” he wrote. “The dropout rate in Halifax County, particularly among black students, is higher than elsewhere in North Carolina.”
Dorosin says the quality of educational resources — including facilities, teachers, learning materials, and curricular and extra-curricular resources — provided to students in Halifax County, and especially students in HCPS and WCS, falls well below constitutional standards.
“Students at Northwest High School in HCPS have endured sewage in the hallways, crumbling ceilings and exposure to mold, and failing heating and air systems,” Dorosin said. “By contrast, the students at RRGSD’s high school attend a school that has been repeatedly renovated since its initial construction, is on the National Register of Historic Places, has a building dedicated solely to physical education and music and a pristine athletic field.”
The county school system and Weldon are unable to attract and retain a sufficient number of experienced, highly effective, or qualified teachers and principals, and their teachers lack access to appropriate instruction materials at a higher rate than RRGSD teachers. ”Students at HCPS and WCS are frequently forced to share old and worn down text books, workbooks and other classroom materials,” he wrote. “Opportunities to enroll in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses are minimal, if available at all, in the two black school districts.”
Dorosin contends the county school system and Weldon do not offer the same opportunities for students with respect to the quality or variety of music, art, physical education, and theater programs as those available to students who attend Roanoke Rapids schools.
“The nature of the educational deficiencies in Halifax County, as well as past attempts at improvement, demonstrate that merely adding resources to the defective three district system cannot remedy the constitutional infirmities of that system, as shown by the limited improvement made by ongoing implementation of a turnaround plan,” Dorosin wrote. “The three-district education system perpetuates racial stigma that is traceable to the county’s history of racial segregation. The board has reinforced and exacerbated the historical racial divide by continuously maintaining and funding three districts despite changes in city limits and a declining student population.”
The county's local funding decisions, including the appropriation of the local sales tax revenue, fails to adequately or fairly resource the three districts, the lawsuit says. “The tripartite school district system flows from and perpetuates a policy of racial separation that signals the inferiority of the black districts and undermines the opportunity of black students to obtain a sound basic education.”
Says the fact sheet, “Halifax County residents, including children and their teachers, understand that the black school districts are considered inferior to the better white district. Social science research has long demonstrated that children who are stigmatized by attending a supposedly inferior school system internalize that stigma, lose motivation, perform more poorly in their academic pursuits than their non-stigmatized peers, and struggle to reach their academic potential.”
In the document outlining highlights of the lawsuit, Dorosin gives profiles of the plaintiffs.
LaTonya Silver is a single mother of three children who attend the county school system.
Her children, Brianna, Larry, and Dominick, will enter grades six, four, and one, respectively, this fall. Brianna is an avid reader, enjoys cheerleading and basketball, and wants to be a doctor.
Larry loves technology, playing football, and wants to be a police officer or firefighter.
Dominick enjoys storytelling, writing and running and hopes to become a journalist.
“Although Brianna hopes to play basketball later in her education, including in high school, she never attended a school with a basketball court until two basketball hoops were installed during her last few months at Pittman Elementary,” the document says. “Belmont Elementary and Chaloner Middle School in RRGSD, however, have basketball courts. Larry has asked his mother why he has to attend the (worst) school and why he cannot go to the school with plenty of textbooks and new buildings.”
Brenda Sledge is the grandmother and guardian of Alicia Jones, who will attend high school this fall at Northwest High School.
Alicia enjoys drawing and painting, reading, and working with children. She has volunteered to work with elementary and middle school students during her study hall and hopes to be a pediatrician or phlebotomist when she grows up. “Although Alicia is interested in a career in science, she has not been provided the opportunity to participate in science experiments at any school she has attended in HCPS or WCS.”
Felicia Scott is the mother of Jamier Scott, who will begin the eighth grade at Weldon Middle School this fall.
Jamier likes being outside, playing with his family’s dog, and riding his bike. He enjoys life sciences and is well known among his family, friends, and teachers for his knowledge of dogs and dog breeds. “Ms. Scott has purchased books for a classroom library in WCS, based on an Amazon wish list created by Jamier’s teacher, because the school’s resources are so limited.”
