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Pulaski County School Superintendent Discusses Unitary Status

The Pulaski County Special School District is working towards achieving unitary status to be released from a 1989 desegregation lawsuit. On Thursday, a federal judge ruled the district had achieved the status in one area, special education.

District Superintendent Jerry Guess said in an interview with KUAR that he hopes to address five additional areas.

Jerry Guess:  "The judge declared us to be unitary in terms of our services to special education students. That essentially means there are no vestiges of segregation evident in the processes and the services we provide to students who could benefit from special education services."

Sarah Whites-Koditschek: What are the areas in which you still are going to be evaluated?

Jerry Guess:  "We still need to gain unitary status in five additional areas. One of those is staffing, and that is the next area that we will embark upon to prove we are unitary there. We are also not unitary in student achievement and student discipline, and in facilities. The fifth area is monitoring, we believe monitoring will be resolved when we are unitary in everything else. That is simply the intent of the court to monitor our performance."

Sarah Whites-Koditschek:  Which of these areas is going to present the biggest challenge for your district?

Jerry Guess:  "Well, facilities is going to be an enormous problem because of the inequities that exist. We have a new beautiful high school in Maumelle that cost $65 million dollars. Most of the facilities that remain in the district are outdated, and well, we've done everything we could to repair them but they are still not in good shape.  Now, that's part of what we put in the filing the judge referred to yesterday. We've proposed to have a millage campaign that would give voters a chance to increase the millage by a small amount and then we would do a significant amount of construction, about $200 million dollars worth. We believe that would substantially equalize the facilities in the district. If that doesn't happen, if the voters don't approve it, then we will still use a final payment from the state, along with second lien bonds, to build a new high school here in the Sweet Home area, "the Southeast Quadrant," as attorney [John] Walker refers to it, where there is a high percentage of poor and minority students."

Sarah Whites-Koditschek: How has the separation of the Jacksonville School District impacted this process?

Jerry Guess: "We believe the separation of Jacksonville actually is good for both entities. Jacksonville has for a long time sought their own district. They're going to get that opportunity.  They also will be able to apply for facilities partnership money which will generate 60 to 65 percent of the cost of building new facilities in Jacksonville. So we believe Jacksonville can correct the facilities problem with partnership money as a result of their severance from PCSSD. PCSSD then will be able to embark on a millage campaign. We won't have to request as much millage to do the construction that we have here [to] equalize facilities. So we think the separation of Jacksonville is actually  beneficial toward our desegregation efforts."

Sarah Whites-Koditschek: I know this has been a long process. Why has it taken so many years?

Jerry Guess: "I think that's a very good question. This case is about 30 years old. Why has it not been resolved?   I can't really answer that. I think a whole lot of factors have contributed. There have been a lot of superintendents who have come and go, who didn't understand the back story, as you say. I think the school board has contributed to the problem. I don't think they've been helpful in resolving the issues. I think there have been a lot of factors that have resulted in it being a 30-year-old case."

Sarah Whites-Koditschek is a former News Anchor/ Reporter for KUAR News and Arkansas Public Media.