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ALEXANDRIA, La. (AP) — The Avoyelles Parish school district is on a three-year path to exiting federal court oversight in a 50-year-old desegregation case.
U.S. District Judge Dee Drell signed a consent order Thursday that the school district and the U.S. Department of Justice agreed on. It gives the district "unitary status."
Drell will retain oversight for three years.
"We are confident that this agreement will bring meaningful progress, and we look forward to working closely with the school board over the next three years to bring this case to a successful close," Vanita Gupta, who leads the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said in a Friday statement.
The school board voted unanimously to agree to the settlement earlier this month.
"You've got my pledge, and I know you have the pledge of the board and . of the staff, that we are going to ensure there is no risk of us going back into this case," Superintendent Blaine Dauzat said then.
Slightly more students are white than black in the 5,500-student district, which includes four high schools and six elementary schools. However, the racial breakdowns vary widely at individual schools. Bunkie Elementary Learning Academy is 82 percent black, while Lafargue Elementary School is 80 percent white.
Under the settlement, the district agrees to clamp down on students attending schools outside their assigned geographic zones unless they transfer to schools where their race is in the minority.
The district will examine a magnet program to attract more white students to the Bunkie elementary school and continue promoting a technical program to attract whites to Bunkie's high school. The district also agreed to a uniform admission policy to do more to bring black students to a magnet high school, the Louisiana School for Agricultural Sciences.
Within schools, the district promises to make sure individual classes are also racially mixed. Avoyelles Parish has also agreed to improve student discipline to eliminate racial disparities in suspensions, alternative school assignment, expulsions and arrests.
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