The federal official says the older plan may trump laws for moving students set forth in the No Child Left Behind Act.
By THOMAS C. TOBIN
Published June 23, 2004
LARGO - Thousands of Pinellas students will receive letters next week telling them they can transfer to another public school because their current school has failed federal standards.
For the vast majority, however, a move will be impossible.
A judge has ruled that Pinellas County's school choice plan will supersede the federal No Child Left Behind Act when it comes to allowing students to transfer.
In contrast to the new federal law, which allows qualifying students to change schools with few restrictions, the choice plan severely restricts movement.
Between 10,000 and 20,000 students will be told they can change schools under No Child Left Behind, but the number of available seats under choice is fewer than 700.
In a terse order, U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday has ruled that the choice plan may not be changed to help the district comply with No Child Left Behind. The judge wrote that the choice plan is the result of "an arduously negotiated settlement" supported by federal law and should not be modified.
A 1999 court-ordered settlement between the School Board and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund brought about an end to busing and replaced it with the choice plan, designed as a way to encourage voluntary school desegregation.
School Board attorney John Bowen announced Merryday's ruling at the board's workshop Tuesday. The judge had signed the order Friday.
"That's a big, big relief in trying to implement No Child Left Behind and our court order," Bowen told the board. "It was absolutely impossible to do both of them."
The federal law's liberal transfer provisions conflicted with the many choice plan rules that help enforce strict racial ratios in schools through 2007, he said.
The School Board contended in a recent motion before Merryday that the federally mandated choice plan and the new federal education law were incompatible - at least in Pinellas.
Under No Child, students may transfer when their existing school fails to meet "adequate yearly progress" for two consecutive years. Thirty-six Pinellas schools fit that description when the federal report card was release last week.
State officials recently eased the county's concerns when they secured permission from the U.S. Department of Education to accommodate transfer students using the choice plan. But that plan still would have supplanted some choice rules, causing "monumental problems," Bowen said.
For example, the district would have been required to give top priority to transfer students with the lowest academic achievement and income. Such a system would have required the district to make major adjustments to its current rules governing which students get preference for getting into schools.
Merryday's ruling means the district will not have to change anything.
According to state officials, the Pinellas choice plan will give students at struggling schools a "wide array" of options to shop around. In practice, however, their choices will be limited.
