The NC Court of Appeals affirmed the Superior Court Judge Howard
Manning’s July 2011 order barring the State from limiting or denying eligible
at-risk four year olds admission to the State’s prekindergarten program. The Court’s ruling reinforces State’s
continuing duty to at-risk students across North Carolina, noting that “under Leandro II, the State has a duty to
prepare all ‘at-risk’ students to avail themselves of an opportunity to obtain
a sound basic education.”
The Center represents the Charlotte-Mecklenburg NAACP in the
matter and filed a brief in the appeal. Read the Court’s opinion and the Center’s brief. See also our April 2012 post after briefs were filed.
In its brief, the Center compared the trial court’s remedial
powers in this case to those exercised by courts overseeing school desegregation
cases, which can include ordering school boards to develop remedies for
constitutional violations, give regular updates on progress towards eliminating
the vestiges of race discrimination and secure court approval for any
modifications to approved measures. The
Court of Appeals ruling implicitly embraced this remedial paradigm, commenting
that that the trial court’s order properly recognized the separation of powers
and emphasizing that the legislative and executive branches developed the PreK
program to “achieve constitutional compliance” pursuant to its duty to provide a
remedy for its continuing violation of the rights to a sound basic education. Having itself presented this remedy, and
repeatedly touted its success, the State could not now abandon that remedy—or
its affirmative constitutional duty-- without an equally effective alternative
plan. The Court held that if the State
wants to modify the prekindergarten program, it could be done “by means of a
motion filed with the trial court setting forth the basis for and manner of any
proposed modification.”
Moreover, the Court did not limit its holding only to
students in Hoke County, as urged by the State, but decided
to “mandate the unrestricted acceptance of all ‘at-risk’ four year old
prospective enrollees who seek to enroll in existing pre-kindergarten programs
across the State,” in part because the State itself offered prekindergarten as a statewide Leandro remedy.
The Court also commented on the
scope of the ongoing Leandro litigation as a whole. The opinion highlighted that previously
established minimum criteria for a constitutionally sound basic education “were
not static or set in stone for all time” but can evolve “to enable the student
to function in a complex and rapidly changing society” and that “[w]hat is
required of the State to provide a ‘sound basic education’ in the 21st century
was not the same as it was in the 19th century, nor will it be the same as it
will be in the 22nd century.”
Posted by Taiyyaba A. Qureshi on Tue. August 21, 2012 4:45 PM
Categories: Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Education, Leandro