North Carolina School Board Sued For Maintaining Segregated and Unequal School Districts

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North Carolina School Board Sued For Maintaining Segregated and Unequal School Districts

September 20th, 2015

Awake Goy

North Carolina School District sued for its failure to provide “sound basic education” to public school students.

The Halifax County, N.C. Board of Commissioners (Board) is being sued by plaintiffs who contend that the Board has failed to provide public school students with the “sound basic education” required under the state constitution.

Plaintiffs consist of a coalition of advocacy groups and parents. Included in the coalition are three parents and guardians of children attending public school in Halifax County, the Coalition for Education and Economic Security (CEES), and the Halifax Branch of the NAACP.

Halifax County population is approximately 40 per cent white and 54 percent black or multiracial. The County’s three school districts serve a total of about 7,000 students. According to Department of Public Instruction data, enrollment in one district is 65 percent white; the other districts have enrollments that are 85 percent and 94 per cent black.

In the lawsuit, the groups claim the Board maintains a three-district school system that divides children into “good” and “bad” school districts along racial lines and that by maintaining a three-district system the Board both perpetuates racial lines and fails to adequately fund the districts. They also contend that the Board has rigged the distribution of the local sales taxes to benefit two of the districts at the expense of the third.

The groups further contend that the quality of educational resources provided to students in the majority black districts falls below constitutional standards. Those resources include facilities, teachers, learning materials, and curricular and extra-curricular aids. To illustrate, they cite conditions at one school which have included sewage in the hallways, crumbling ceilings, exposure to mold, and failing heating/cooling systems. By contrast, a school in another district has been repeatedly renovated since its initial construction, has a building just for physical education and music, and has an excellent athletic field.

Rebecca Copeland, chairperson of CEES, said, “Perpetuating an education system with three identifiable and inequitably resourced school districts undermines the opportunity to a sound, basic education guaranteed by our state constitution.” Plaintiffs are asking the court to order the Board to come up with a plan to unify and better fund county schools.