Monday, August 8, 2011
Judge Mays Rules!: It's Basically Norris-Todd as MCS-SCS School Merger Goes Through
Posted by Jackson Baker on Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 3:30 PM
The decision, which was filed Monday morning in 146 pages, comes down to this: Mays' finds the provisions of Norris-Todd both applicable and constitutional, though he declines to rule on its enabling of future new school districts as not "ripe."
The decision also finds constitutional the 1961 Private Act under which MSC opted to surrender its charter last December, an action ratified by the Memphis City Council in February.
MCS is thereby regarded as defunct “for all purposes except the winding down of its operations and the transfer of administration to the Shelby County Board of Education.,,,” The transfer, as specified in Mays’ order, is to take place at the beginning of the school year 2013-14 — the exact timetable specified by the Norris-Todd bill passed by the General PAssembly earlier this year.
Though Judge Mays' order calls for MCS as an entity to complete its dissolution as of August 2013, he specifically directs that "[t]he City of Memphis has the obligation during the transition process to maintain its funding of the Memphis City Schools."
The Planning Commission established by Norris-Todd is also recognized as valid by the order, which directs all the entities entitled to make appointments to it to do so forthwith; its recommendations are to be submitted to the state Education Department for review, but approval of them is within the province of the Shelby Couty Schools board.
The order further specifies that the Shelby County Commission, which had petitioned for approval of its plans to appoint an immediate 25-member all-county school board, “lacks authority” to do so. Nor do the City of Memphis nor the City Council have any official role in proceeding with the merger, which is to take place under the exclusive authority of Shelby County Schools.
The County Commission will meet in executive session on Tuesday to discuss the outcome. Memphis City Council chairman Myron Lowery responded Monday afternoon as follows: "I am very pleased with Judge Mays’ ruling today regarding the merger of the Memphis City Schools and Shelby County Schools.
" Now that we have closure on questions surrounding the legality of the abolishment of Memphis City Schools, both Memphis City Schools and Shelby County Schools can begin working together to bring about a unified school system where every child in Shelby County will have an equal education under the new Shelby County School Board. Judge Mays’ ruling is truly a compromise that will benefit all of our children."
Memphis Mayor A C Wharton said, "I'm glad the judge has ruled because this moves us closer to some certainty..... The key thing is we now can mark a date on the wall as to when certain things will be complete..... In short order, both parties should be able to get things worked out and get this out of the headlines and get back to the children."
Wharton also noted the obvious — that in the long run the ruling "could bring some financial relief" for the City of Memphis.
Other points of interest: The current SCS districts are regarded as “unconstitutional,” and August 12 has been set as a date for the presentation of plans to correct the current mal-apportionment, based only on areas outside the previous boundaries of the Memphis City Schools district.
That means in effect that, while the SCS Board will administer the merger process, it will be a new SCS Board that does so, one reapportioned according to district lines that are held constitutional.
The means of selecting the new members — numbering seven in all, as is the case at present — is unspecified in the order but could presumably involve, as the order seems to suggest, an immediate election once the new lines are approved and established.
That would be somewhat in accordance with the alternate Plan B suggested by the County Commission -- a fact referenced by Commission chairman Sidney Chism, who said, "I think he’s [Mays has] pretty well split the baby. Everybody got something. As far I know, the commission will have a chance to do something with Plan B. We’ve already drawn some lines. We might have to tweak them a little bit."
Chism's Commission colleague Steve Mulroy, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Memphis, was even more sanguine. In a widely distributed statement, Mulroy said, "“This is a big win for those favoring prompt school merger. We have always emphasized the need for a unified school board; that it need be formed now not in 2013; that it drive the bus on the transition to a unified system; and that the current 7-member SCS board is unconstitutional for lack of Memphis representation. The judge agreed with us on all those points…”
Additionally, the SCS Board is required to submit a plan to the state Education Commissioner ensuring that "teachers' rights are protected," and the Commissioner will "determine whether the rights and privileges of teachers who work at Memphis City Schools will be impaired, interrupted, or diminished."
A key issue in the litigation, which had involved claims and counter-claims from all the relevant political and pubic educational bodies in Memphis and Shelby County, was the consitutinality of a provision in the Norris-Todd bill allowing the creation of special or municipal school districts in Shelby County in August 2013 at the time of the completed school-system merger.
The court adjudged that the issue of new school districts was not "ripe" and would not be until such time as attempts might be made to create the new districts (i.e., August 2013); accordingly, the court dismissed claims on that point.
Governor Bill Haslam weighed in regarding the ruling late Monday afternoon by means of a statement released from the governor's office: "We are currently reviewing the judge's entire decision. In an initial review, the governor is pleased that the court ruled this year's Memphis city school legislation is constitutional.
"He also appreciates the clarity the decision affords the process and believes it is the appropriate time for the transition planning commission to get to work."
Comments (11)
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Sounds like he cut the kid in half. Everybody wins something and loses something. Too bad he upheld Norris-Todd, though; its unconstitutionality seemed like a lead pipe cinch. I'll be curious to see his rationale for that.
I'm sure his ruling wasn't motivated by political affiliation, though. After all, federal courts are above that sort of thing, aren't they?
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Marty, don't you think the 6th Circuit may throw out Norris-Todd? It screams Ex Post Facto to me...
I think it's important to point out that Mays did not rule on the constitutionality of the (b)(3) portion of Norris-Todd (allowing new municipal and special school districts), declaring it not yet ripe and leaving it for later if anyone should try it.
LWC: the 6th Circuit is nothing if not unpredictable. No one, for example, expected them to uphold the constitutionality of the Obama health care law, as they did. So, who knows what they'll do with this.
State law trumps, even though it was pretty obvious what the Republicans were up to with that bill. But if the state Republicans try school districts that segregate de facto, they're going to find that federal law trumps the TN General Assembly and TN courts.
I have read the entire ruling. I am a reader of the English language and not a lawyer but the judge seems to rule that the federal court has jurisdiction since issues of constitutionality and violations of federal law were raised. Then he basically ruled that none of the state laws involved violate the U.S. Constitution, federal laws or state court rulings. An exception is the makeup of the current county school board, which the ruling says is unconstitutional since the county school board will be supervising the merger of the two school systems. The issue of Norris-Todd relating to creating a new special school district or new city districts involves whether that portion of the law is properly covered by the caption of the law. There doesn't appear to be any thing that would prohibit the General Assembly from going ahead in its session next year and enacting a separate law removing the ban on new special and city districts in the state. That would open the way for a new special district or new suburban city districts to be created in Shelby County. Such a move would obviously be challenged in court. However, the challenge would likely be on the direct question of whether the state has authority to authorize new special or city districts when 13 other special and more than 20 city districts already exist in the state. If there is a challenge, it seems it should be on the direct question and not on whether including the special and city district language in the Norris-Todd bill is invalid on grounds it exceeds the caption of the law.
One or both sides probably will appeal Judge Mays' ruling on the various issues. It seems clear that the courts will be dealing with issues relating to the county board's taking control of city schools for some time to come.
What is to stop the General Assembly from moving the goalpost next session and putting the merger off for another year or two, so the suburbs have time to form their own districts? It seems to me Mays has effectively ruled Norris-Todd et al can tread water indefinitely. It is not as if Norris-Todd is there to facilitate the merger--the sole purpose of that legislation is to impede it and everybody knows that. Why not manufacture a new "plan" each time the deadline gets near? it Am I missing something?
Well I just finished reading Judge Mays’ ruling. He was very thorough if nothing else. I did find one bone of contention though. He ruled that the Public Chapter 1 passed muster as not being narrow in scope because it could be applied to any SSD that opted to surrender its charter to the local county school board thus increasing enrolment in the county school district by 100%. (whew!). How many SSD are there in Tennessee that would cause this situation to arise? None. Unless of course he’s considering Carroll County which has no county school system, but several SSD., and then it’s only one out of 95 counties. I would tend to think that’s a bit narrow.
I do not necessarily agree with his ruling that since Public Chapter 1 is basically administrative in nature, it’s ex post facto nature does not matter.
The last issue I see, and it may be a non-issue, is that the judge reference the city-wide referendum to surrender the MCS charter several times. It was noted more than once that the vote took place after Public Chapter 1 was signed into law, therefore firmly placing the charter surrender under the auspices of PC1 (no after fact here people!) Now, this is going to cause a good bit of memory recall, but was the vote not put off as long as possible by Gianini (sp) and company at the election commission? Should it not have taken place prior to the Feb 11 signing of the CP1. I was also a bit confused by the fact that the judge states the MCS effectively surrendered its charter when it was delivered to the secretary of state, making the December 20th date the official surrender date. Can anyone sort this bit out?
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