Lee v. Chambers County

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF ALABAMA

EASTERN DIVISION

ANTHONY T. LEE, et al., )

)

Plaintiffs, )

)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, )

et al., )

)

Plaintiff-Intervenors, )

)

v. ) CASE NO. 3:70-CV-844-WKW

) [WO]

CHAMBERS COUNTY BOARD )

OF EDUCATION, et al., )

)

Defendants. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

I. INTRODUCTION

In the state of Alabama, along its eastern central border, lies Chambers

County. In this largely rural county sits the Chambers County Board of Education.

Every year for the past thirty years, the Board has opened the doors of its two high

schools, and the hallways and classrooms of LaFayette High School and Valley High

School have come alive with students and teachers. This year, the Chambers County

Board of Education wants to begin construction of a new high school in the City of

Valley. The new school would serve all students in the county district, uniting the

public high school student body for the district in a single structure. The construction

of a new high school and consolidation of the students of Lafayette High School and

Valley High School have overwhelming support from the Board’s communities.

The resounding community voice is that a unified high school is long overdue. In

contention, however, is the Board’s proposal for the location of the new high

school—on a seventy-four-acre site donated by the City of Valley—and its decision

to close the doors to LaFayette High School and move those students to the campus

of Valley High School until the new high school is built.

Because the Chambers County Board of Education is operating under federal

court desegregation orders, a federal court must resolve these contested issues. The

issues came to the forefront in the Board’s pending Motion for Approval of Site for

New Consolidated High School, for Approval to Build the New High School, and

for Authorization to Temporarily Consolidate High School Students. (Doc. # 500.)

Plaintiffs—who are the black students and their guardians in the Chambers County

Board of Education’s district1 and the United States—oppose the motion. They

argue that the location of the proposed site for the consolidated high school violates

1 There are at least two legal oddities here. First, there is no named, individual black

Plaintiff who currently is a student; however, no party has objected to the absence of such a named

Plaintiff. The United States stands alone as a known entity with standing. See Lee v. Macon Cnty.

Bd. of Educ., 267 F. Supp. 458, 460 (M.D. Ala.) (“In July 1963 the United States was added as a

party and as amicus curiae in order that the public interest in the administration of justice would

be represented.”), aff’d sub nom. Wallace v. United States, 389 U.S. 215 (1967). Second, it is

highly unlikely—and no evidence was presented at the January 2023 trial—that any black student

at Valley High School objects to consolidation on racial grounds.

a 1993 consent order and places a disproportionate transportation burden on the

District’s black students for both temporary and permanent consolidation.

The court has been deep into these issues. In December 2022, the court held

a public hearing on the Board’s motion and heard the emotional testimony of parents,

students, and community organizations and leaders.2 It also conducted site visits to

the high schools and the multiple suggested sites for the new high school. In January

2023, the court held a four-day trial during which it heard from thirteen witnesses

and received more than sixty exhibits. There also has been voluminous briefing both

before and after the trial.

Counsel for all parties are commended for the thoroughness and quality of

their preparation and advocacy on these important issues, for their professionalism,

and for their cooperation. Superintendent Casey Chambley and the Board also

deserve recognition for their tireless efforts and countless hours devoted to serving

the students of the Chambers County.

The remedial powers of a federal court in desegregation cases like this one are

narrow. Now that the issues surrounding consolidation of the highs schools and

construction of a new high school are contested, the federal courts’ oversight role,

2 The court also held a public hearing in June 2022 concerning other school closures (Doc.

# 487), and, at that hearing, members of the public also addressed the issue of the consolidation of

the high schools (Doc. # 495).

while required, is limited. A federal court cannot instruct a school board on how to

make policy decisions, and it cannot act as a roadblock to a school board’s policy

decisions, such as those on consolidation and closure of schools and construction of

new schools, unless the school board acts in an unconstitutional manner. See Harris

v. Crenshaw Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 968 F.2d 1090, 1095 (11th Cir. 1992).

After careful consideration of the arguments of counsel and the evidence, the

court entered an order on June 23, 2023, overruling Plaintiffs’ objections to the

Board’s plan to construct a new, consolidated high school in Valley, Alabama, and

permitting the Board to proceed immediately with its plans presented to the court at

the trial in January 2023. (Doc. # 578.) In the same Order, the court sustained

Plaintiffs’ objections to the Board’s plans to merge the student bodies of LaFayette

High School and Valley High School on the campus of Valley High School during

construction of the new high school because those plans create an undue burden on

the black students at LaFayette High School. LaFayette High School therefore shall

remain open during the construction of the new high school. (Doc. # 578.)

Accordingly, the Board’s Motion for Approval of Site for New Consolidated High

School and for Approval to Build the New High School will be granted, and the

Board’s Motion for Authorization to Temporarily Consolidate High School Students

will be denied. (Doc. # 500.) This opinion explains the court’s reasons for its

rulings.

II. SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION

Subject matter jurisdiction is proper because the Chambers County Board of

Education is operating under federal-court desegregation orders. See Lee v. Macon

Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 584 F.2d 78, 81 (5th Cir. 1978)3 (explaining that “[f]ederal

district courts possess jurisdiction over school desegregation cases only because of

unconstitutional action by the state or by a local school board” and that district courts

“retain jurisdiction . . . to insure the proper implementation of the desegregation plan

and the achievement of the ultimate goal a unitary school system in which the State

does not discriminate between public school children on the basis of their race.”).

III. FINDINGS OF FACT

The Chambers County Board of Education (District) has operated under

federal-court desegregation orders for more than half a century.4 Lee v. Macon

County Bd. of Educ., 267 F. Supp. 458 (M.D. Ala. 1967) (mandating Alabama’s

school districts, including Chambers County, to disestablish their racially segregated

3 In Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir.1981) (en banc), the

Eleventh Circuit adopted as binding precedent all of the decisions of the former Fifth Circuit

handed down prior to the close of business on September 30, 1981.

4 The Chambers County school district covers most of the county, only with the exception

of the City of Lanett, which has maintained a separate school district since 1898. (Doc. # 493

at 2); see Lee v. Chambers Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 849 F. Supp. 1474, 1476 (M.D. Ala. 1994) (“There

have been two separate school systems in Chambers County, Alabama since the turn of the century:

a Chambers County school system and a Lanett City school system.”). This opinion is not about

the City of Lanett school system.

school systems) (three-judge district court), aff’d sub nom, Wallace v. United States,

389 U.S. 215 (1967) (three-judge district court). Federal court supervision is

compulsory until the District attains unitary status. The District has not reached

unitary status, either full or partial, and it is not currently seeking unitary status.5

Because the District is operating under federal-court desegregation orders and

oversight, the District cannot independently close, consolidate, or build schools

without obtaining federal-court approval. Over the last half century, the federal

court has overseen school closures and consolidations in the District; some were by

agreement, and others were in dispute. Most recently, in June 2022, after the first

public hearing, the court approved the District’s decision to close Five Points

Elementary School, J.P. Powell Middle School,6 and LaFayette-Lanier Elementary

School.7 (Doc. # 493.)

5 To attain unitary status, a district must achieve desegregation with respect to its

(1) students, (2) facilities, (3) staff, (4) faculty, (5) extracurricular activities, and (6) transportation.

Green v. Cnty. Sch. Bd. of New Kent Cnty., Va., 391 U.S. 430, 435 (1968); Manning ex rel.

Manning v. Sch. Bd. of Hillsborough Cnty., 244 F.3d 927, 942 (11th Cir. 2001) (“[F]or a district

court to determine whether the vestiges of discrimination have been eliminated to the extent

practicable, it must examine . . . the Green factors.”). In addition to the Green factors, federal

courts may examine other ancillary factors, such as the quality of education—including graduation

rates and retention—“to determine whether minority students were being disadvantaged in ways

that required the formulation of new and further remedies to ensure full compliance with the

court’s decree.” Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U.S. 467, 492 (1992).

6 The middle school was moved to a different but existing facility in LaFayette and retained

the same name, J. P. Powell Middle School. (Doc. # 570 at 36–37.)

7 The court also approved the District’s creation of a STEAM magnet school at Eastside

Elementary School in LaFayette. (Doc. # 493.)

The District now moves for court approval to build a new high school on the

proposed site in Valley and to temporarily consolidate its high school students at

Valley High School until the new school’s completion. (Doc. # 500.) The

construction of a district-wide high school is not in contention; however, the

principal objections to the construction are that the proposed location of the new,

district-wide high school in the City of Valley contravenes a 1993 consent order

entered in this case and is unconstitutional because it imposes an unequal

transportation burden on the District’s black students. The following are the court’s

findings of fact as to the District’s proposed actions.8

A. The District’s Schools

The District currently operates four elementary schools, two middle schools,

and two high schools. The two high schools are LaFayette High School and Valley

High School. The schools in the attendance zone for LaFayette High School are

Eastside Elementary School and J.P. Powell Middle School. Both are magnet

schools focusing on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) (Doc.

# 570 at 35.) The schools in the attendance zone for Valley High School are Bob

Harding-Shawmut Elementary School, Fairfax Elementary School, Huguley

Elementary School, and W.F. Burns Middle School. (Doc. # 570 at 34–35.)

8 Many of the facts are stipulated. Counsel and the parties are commended for their good

faith efforts and work in arriving at these stipulations. (Doc. # 568.)

During the 2022–23 school year, the District enrolled 3,097 students, of whom

49% were black, 45% were white, and 6% were of another race or ethnicity.

LaFayette High School enrolled 205 students (86% black, 13% white, and 1% other).

Valley High School enrolled 617 students (47% black, 48% white, and 5% other).

(Doc. # 568 at ¶ 5.) Combined in the County system, there were 822 high school

students (57% black, 39% white, and 4% other). (Doc. # 568 at ¶ 6.) Currently, the

District spends approximately $14,000 per student each year at LaFayette High

School and approximately $8,000 per student at Valley High School. (Doc. # 570

at 154; Doc. # 571 at 191.)

There are three more facts of importance: First, LaFayette and Lanett are

directly connected by State Highway 50, approximately eleven miles from city to

city. Second, Lanett and Valley co-exist in the southeast corner of the county on the

Georgia state line. Third, the county school system is split between two time zones,

as will be explained.

B. The District’s Career Technical Education Facility and Offerings

The District offers career technical education in a stand-alone facility, called

Inspire Academy. Inspire Academy, which is in LaFayette across the street from the

Chambers County Board of Education facility, offers eleven programs. Those

programs include agri-science, automotive service, culinary, business and finance,

cosmetology, and pre-engineering. (Doc. # 570 at 37–41.) Inspire Academy also

offers a virtual school. One of Plaintiffs’ experts described Inspire Academy as the

“Taj Mahal of career tech education facilities,” which he said would be the envy of

every school district for whom he has worked. (Doc. # 569 at 69.) From all

appearances and evidence, the court would be hard-pressed to disagree.

High school students from both schools can elect to take courses at Inspire

Academy as part of their curriculum. For the 2022–23 academic year, 397 students

from Valley High School and 187 students from LaFayette High School took one or

more courses at Inspire Academy. Of those students, 193 (48.6 percent) of Valley

High’s students were black, and 157 (84 percent) of the LaFayette High’s students

were black.9 (Doc. # 565-2 at 1.) The ride to Inspire Academy for current LaFayette

High School students is about five minutes. The ride for current Valley High School

students taking classes at Inspire Academy is about twenty-five minutes. (Doc.

# 568 at ¶ 31.) Students who elect to enroll in courses at Inspire Academy, whether

they attend Valley High School or LaFayette High School, have to schedule two

class periods to account for the bus travel. (Doc. # 571 at 125–26.)

In addition to the career tech education at Inspire Academy, LaFayette High

School and Valley High School each offer two career tech courses. LaFayette High

9 The District’s middle school students also are eligible to take certain courses at Inspire

Academy. For the 2022–23 academic year, sixty-two W.F. Burns students (twenty-two of whom

are black) and forty-two J.P. Powell students (thirty-nine of whom are black) were enrolled for

classes at Inspire Academy. (Doc. # 565-2.)

offers graphic arts and teacher education, and Valley High offers health science and

Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC). (Doc. # 570 at 39.) For the

2022–23 academic year, twenty-six LaFayette High students (twenty of whom are

black) traveled to Valley High to take career tech courses, and twenty-eight Valley

High students (nineteen of whom are black) traveled to LaFayette High to take career

tech courses. (Doc. # 565-2.) Because Inspire Academy will be relocated to the

new high school, consolidation of the two high schools will increase student

opportunity to participate in these courses, and create efficiencies that do not now

exist.

C. The 1993 Agreed Order

The idea of consolidation of the District’s two high schools has its genesis in

a 1993 Order to which the parties agreed (1993 Agreed Order). (Doc. # 564-4; Doc.

# 499-1.) In the 1993 Agreed Order, the District agreed to consolidate the two high

schools and build a new high school, but its agreement depended upon the federal

court’s ruling on a then-pending motion filed by the intervenors—the City of Valley

and the Valley City Board of Education—to create and operate a separate city school

system within Chambers County, Alabama. The 1993 Agreed Order provides:

If the Court determines that formation of a separate Valley City School

District should not be permitted at this time, the district agrees to

support the construction and operation of a consolidated, district-wide

high school facility at a site readily accessible to Alabama state

highway Route No. 50 between Lanett and LaFayette. No later than

one year following issuance of such determination by the Court, the

Chambers County Board of Education shall request from the County

Commissioners of Chambers County such additional revenue measures

as may be necessary to support the issuance of bonds or otherwise to

finance the construction of such a district-wide high school. The

district will inform the other signatory parties of the disposition of such

request[s].

(Doc. # 564-4 at 16.) The federal court denied the City of Valley’s request to operate

a separate school system, see Lee v. Chambers Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 849 F. Supp. 1474

(M.D. Ala. 1994), triggering the 1993 Agreed Order’s mandate for the District to

build a consolidated high school. (Doc. # 564-2.)

In contention is the 1993 Agreed Order’s provision that the consolidated high

school be built “at a site readily accessible to Alabama state highway Route No. 50

between Lanett and LaFayette.” Highway 50, named Veterans Memorial Highway,

is an east-west corridor, stretching approximately eleven miles between Lanett and

LaFayette. The proposed site of the new high school is approximately four-and-a-

half to five miles from the eastern access to Highway 50. (Doc. # 569 at 84.)

For various reasons throughout the years, beginning with the voters’ solid

rejection in 1994 of a tax referendum, a consolidated high school has not been built.

(Doc. # 570 at 168–69.) From the taxpayers’ rejection of funding in 1994 until 2022,

the parties did not pursue the construction of a consolidated high school. But that

does not mean the case became inactive. In May 1995, the District moved to amend

the desegregation order, which if granted, would have superseded the 1993 Agreed

Order and would have let the District build two new high schools, one for the

LaFayette attendance zone and one for the Valley attendance zone. (Doc. # 564 at

12–13.) However, the District moved to withdraw the motion to amend prior to a

ruling.10 Three years later, in 1998, the parties jointly moved to amend the

desegregation order. That motion—which was granted—addressed grade

reconfiguration for middle school students and facility expansion and did not

mention the 1993 Agreed Order’s requirement to construct a consolidated high

school. (Doc. # 564-54.)

In 1999, another joint motion to amend the desegregation orders was filed.

As part of that motion, the parties agreed that to relieve overcrowding at Valley High

School, two buildings would be demolished, and a new structure would be built to

accommodate twenty-one classrooms. In that same joint motion, the parties agreed

that the Board could build a 35,735-square-foot gymnasium to replace the old

gymnasium at LaFayette High School and a 2000-square-foot science lab at that

school. Also, the joint motion asked that the prior Orders regarding building projects

be amended, which allowed the District, among other things, to do extensive roofing

repairs at LaFayette High School. That motion was granted. (Docs. # 564-54, 564-

10 The court, on motion, deferred Plaintiffs’ responses to the petition. (Docs. # 188, 190.)

In January 1997, the District moved to withdraw the petition prior to any ruling on it. (Doc. # 564-

53.)

55; Doc. # 570 at 176–80.) There was no mention of constructing a consolidated

high school in that motion or order.

In 2015, this court awakened the dormant issues with an Order—the first in

seven years—for the Chambers County Board of Education to show cause why this

action was not suitable for a motion for declaration of unitary status. (Doc. # 325.)

The case lumbered along for seven more years with little progress. Fast forward to

2022, after the election of a new superintendent, Dr. Chambley. The issue of a new,

consolidated high school resurfaced, but without mention of the 1993 Agreed

Order’s provision as to the location of the high school. In May 2022, the parties

jointly moved the court to approve a proposed consent order. The motion stated that:

“The Parties agree that the attached Proposed Consent Order . . . will reasonably

ensure that, if fully implemented, the District will eliminate the vestiges of de jure

segregation . . . and will provide equal educational opportunities to all of the students

enrolled in the District.” (Doc. # 480 at 7.) The agreement submitted by the parties

detailed several important changes to be made to the Chambers County school

system, including the consolidation of the system’s two high schools. In that motion,

the parties agreed that the District would “select the site for a new consolidated high

school, not on either the current LaFayette or Valley High School campuses,” and

that the “[l]ocation must not impose an unequal burden on students on the basis of

race, to the extent practicable.” (Doc. # 480-1 at 3.) However, two weeks later, after

the parties had expended substantial time and resources in negotiating the proposed

consent decree, including negotiations in Washington, D.C., the Private Plaintiffs

withdrew their consent. (Doc. # 481 at 2; Doc. # 483 at 2; Doc. # 493 at 4–5; Doc.

# 495 at 134.) In recent filings opposing the District’s motion to consolidate the

high schools, Plaintiffs, for the first time in a long time, have raised the site location

provision in the 1993 Agreed Order as an issue.

It is now thirty years after the entry of the 1993 Agreed Order, and there still

is not a consolidated or new school for all the District’s high school students. Hence,

the existence of two high schools in the District has not changed. Other things also

have not changed, including some of Chambers County’s geographic features, the

two time zones, racially identifiable schools in the LaFayette High School

attendance zone, fifty-seven percent higher per-student annual costs for LaFayette

students, and unequal academic and extracurricular offerings between the high

schools. What has changed for the District are the population, District enrollment,

and the superintendent. The discussion turns to the matters where time has stood

still and where time has brought change.

D. Chambers County’s Geographic Features

As noted, Chambers County is in east central Alabama along the border of

Alabama and Georgia. Interstate 85 runs through the southeast quadrant of the

county at roughly a forty-five-degree angle. On the southeast side of I-85 lies the

City of Valley, Alabama, which has been incorporated since 1980. It is bordered by

the Chattahoochee River on the east, and I-85 and Lanett to the north. Lanett lies

just north and west of Valley with I-85 separating the two cities. Lanett and Valley

are bordered on the east by the Georgia state line; West Point, Georgia; and the

Chattahoochee River. The rest of Chambers County is rural, except for LaFayette.

LaFayette is and has been (since 1835) the county seat and is located approximately

in the middle of Chambers County. (Doc. # 568 4 1.)

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(Doc. # 564-14.)

15

E. Racially Identifiable Schools in the LaFayette Attendance Zone

The three schools in the LaFayette feeder pattern are racially identifiable black

schools and have been since the original desegregation order. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 4; Doc.

# 441 at 5.) They are racially identifiable because their enrollments deviate from the

District-wide racial composition by more than fifteen percentage points.11 (Doc.

# 568 ¶ 4.) For instance, for the 2022–23 academic year, eighty-six percent of

LaFayette High School’s students were black (Doc. # 568 ¶ 5), and seventy-four

percent of J.P. Powell Middle School’s students were black (Doc. # 568 ¶ 32).

F. The Academic and Extracurricular Offerings at LaFayette High School

Valley High School offers more course selections and extracurricular

activities than LaFayette High School. As Superintendent Chambley testified, the

incongruity results from the discrepancy in enrollment at the two schools. (Doc.

# 570, at 152–54; see Doc. # 568 ¶ 5 (stipulating that, for the 2022–23 academic

year, LaFayette High School enrolled 205 students, and Valley High School enrolled

617 students).) When only three or four students qualify for a class, which has

11 Courts have acknowledged that plus or minus fifteen percent is a valid ratio for

determining whether schools are racially identifiable. See, e.g., Belk v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg

Bd. of Educ., 269 F.3d 305, 319 (4th Cir. 2001) (“[P]lus/minus fifteen percent variance is clearly

within accepted standards, and provides a reasonable starting point in the unitary status

determination.”); Singleton v. Jackson Mun. Separate Sch. Dist., 419 F.2d 1211 (5th Cir. 1969).

The fact that schools are “racially identifiable” reflects many factors beyond the control of any

party here, including residential demographics, the presence of alternative, private schools, and

population growth or shrinkage, migration, and dispersion generally.

occurred at LaFayette High School because of the lower enrollment, the District

cannot justify assigning a teacher for such a small class. (Doc. # 570 at 152–54.)

Superintendent Chambley also explained that at LaFayette High School, some team

sports do not generate enough student interest to form a team. (Doc. # 570 at 153–

54.)

To illustrate the discrepancy in extracurricular offerings, in the 2012–13

through 2014–15 school district profiles, Valley High School offered fourteen

extracurricular activities that were not available in LaFayette High School, including

national honor societies, national service clubs, and sports teams for soccer, tennis

and golf, which can provide college scholarship opportunities. (Doc. # 443-8.) This

testimony was no surprise, as the District repeatedly has admitted that Valley High

School has more academic and extracurricular offerings than LaFayette High

School. (See, e.g., Doc. # 328 at 10.) This was historically true, although Valley

High School is no longer predominantly white as it was in 1993. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 5);

Lee, 849 F. Supp. at 1481 (“The curricula at LaFayette High, predominately black,

and Valley High, predominately white, were different in several respects.”).

G. The Operation of Two Time Zones in the District

Chambers County has two time zones. (Doc. # 570 at 30.) The portions of

Chambers County encompassing the LaFayette High School attendance zone

observe the Central Time Zone, and the portions of Chambers County encompassing

the Valley High School attendance zone observe the Eastern Time Zone. (Doc.

# 570 at 31–32.) Yet, they are in the same school district.

The use of the Eastern Time Zone is by custom, not law. In the Standard Time

Act of 1918, Congress placed the entire state of Alabama in the Central Time Zone.

Still, some areas on the Alabama side of the Georgia–Alabama border, including the

City of Valley, remained in the Eastern Time Zone to accommodate local industry—

specifically for Chambers County, to accommodate local textile mills. Today, the

textile mills are gone, but the de facto use of Eastern Time has persisted, and it has

created significant problems for the communities in Chambers County. (Doc. # 570

at 32, 44–45.) For example, hardships exist when parents work in a time zone

different from the one in which their children attend school, when two children in a

family attend school in different time zones, or when buses must service two time

zones on one route. (See, e.g., Doc. # 571 at 114–16.)

Superintendent Chambley has committed to operate all schools in the District

on Central Time after the consolidation of the two high schools. (Doc # 570 at 53–

54, 146.) He testified that the District, the City of Valley, and its hospital are the

three largest employers in the county and that the city and the hospital, as well as

other industries, also have committed to changing their operations to Central Time.

(Doc. # 570 at 148–49.)

H. Population Shifts in Chambers County

According to the U.S. census data, Chambers County’s population decreased

from 38,876 to 34,772 between 1990 and 2020, a 10.56 percent decrease. (Doc.

# 564-62.) The City of LaFayette’s population also declined between 1990 and

2020. In 1990, the City of LaFayette’s population was 3,205; in 2000, it was 3,234;

in 2010, it was 3,003; and in 2020, it was 2,684. The City of LaFayette’s population

decreased by 16.3 percent over this 30-year period, with the black population

decreasing by 12.3 percent (1,991 to 1,747) and the white population decreasing by

31.1 percent (1,207 to 832). (Doc. # 564-62.)

During the same 30-year period, the City of Valley’s population increased. In

1990, the City of Valley’s population was 8,173; in 2000, it was 9,198; in 2010, it

was 9,524; and in 2020, it was 10,513. (Doc. # 564-62.) The City of Valley’s

population increased by 28.6 percent over this 30-year period, with the black

population increasing by 180 percent (1,411 to 3,963) and the white population

decreasing by 7.4 percent (6,735 to 6,234).

I. Decreases in the District’s Enrollment

Over the past thirty years, the District’s school enrollment has decreased. For

the 1991–92 academic year, Valley High School projected an enrollment of 856

students, and LaFayette High School projected an enrollment of 514 students. (Doc.

# 570 at 47–48.) For the 2022–23 academic year, Valley High School had 617

students (a twenty-eight percent decrease), and LaFayette High School had 205

students (a sixty percent decrease). (Doc. # 568 ¶ 5.)

In addition, overall, Chambers County schools continue to show a decline in

enrollment. For the data provided (the 2015–16 academic year through the 2022–

23 academic year), the number of students for all grades decreased from 3,739 to

3,381 (9.57%). For the same eight-year period, the number of students in high

school decreased from 1,080 to 957 (11.39%). (Doc. # 564-38 at 19; Doc. # 571,

at 182–83.)

J. Changed Demographics at Valley High School

In 1993, Valley High School was a predominantly white high school. See

Lee, 849 F. Supp. at 1481. Today, it is racially diverse. For the 2022–23 academic

year, Valley High School enrolled 617 students of whom 47 percent were black, 48

percent were white, and 5 percent identified as another race. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 5.)

K. Five Superintendents over the Course of Thirty Years

Since 1993, the District has seen five superintendents at the helm, all of whom

were elected. The current superintendent is Casey Chambley, Ph.D. (Doc. # 565-1

at 1.) He began his term in October 2021. (Doc. # 571 at 90.)

L. The District’s Preparations for, Approval of, and Plans for a New,

Consolidated High School

This brings the factual discussion to the present, with the District’s efforts to

conceptualize and complete the construction of a single high school to serve all

students in the system.

1. Site Selection

Site selection for a consolidated high school began in November 2021, when

the District hired consultants at Hoar Program Management (HPM), chiefly Tracy

Richter, for long-range, master planning for the District that would align with the

goal of achieving unitary status.12 The long-range plan included a recommendation

that the District consolidate the high schools and build a new high school to

accommodate 1,000 students. (Doc. # 564-66 at 3, 5.) During that period,

community meetings were conducted throughout the county dealing with various

issues about the schools and master planning. (Doc. # 564-66 at 3.)

In June 2022, the District worked with Mr. Richter to identify and analyze

potential sites for the new combined high school. HPM hired GIS analyst Lee

Hwang to identify potential high school sites over forty acres. Mr. Hwang analyzed

12 Mr. Richter, who is vice president of planning services for HPM, describes himself as

an education facilities planner. (Doc. # 571 at 172.)

distances between student residences and potential high school sites. (Doc. # 568

¶¶ 8–9; see also Doc. # 564-66 at 5.)

Mr. Hwang located ten sites. In July 2022, he met with Superintendent

Chambley about the sites he had identified, namely eight sites along or close to

Highway 50, one site in Fredonia, and one site in Cusseta. (Doc. # 568 ¶¶ 8–9.)

In addition to the ten sites identified by Mr. Hwang, the District received two

offers for donated land. First, on June 24, 2022, the City of LaFayette offered to

donate land to the school board to construct a consolidated high school. The City of

LaFayette offered up to a combined 164 acres of land it owned or had the option to

buy. (Docs. # 568 ¶ 13; 564-25; 564-29; 564-30.)

Second, on July 20, 2022, the City of Valley offered to donate a seventy-four-

acre parcel for a consolidated high school. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 13.) The City of Valley’s

proposal included environmental, geotechnical, and topographical information

obtained in 2016, for which the Chambers County Development Authority helped

pay. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 14.) This proposal, according to the terms of the city’s offer,

would expire within three years of its date. (Doc. # 564-59; Doc. # 570 at 76.) The

proposed site in Valley is approximately two miles from Valley High School and

four-and-a-half to five miles from a junction with Highway 50. (Doc. # 572 at 236;

Doc. # 564 at 84.)

After the cities of Valley and LaFayette offered to donate property, Mr.

Richter recommended that the District narrow its site selection to the two donated

properties. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 15; Doc. # 571 at 276.)

2. Community Meetings

On September 12 and 13, 2022, the District held community meetings to

present site selection research conducted by HPM. The presentation provided a

comparison of the two donated properties. The District’s site selection comparison

was not completed at the time of the presentation. Attorneys for the Plaintiff Parties

attended both presentations. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 17.)

After the LaFayette meeting, the District, for the first time, requested

additional information about the donated property in LaFayette. The City of

LaFayette responded to the District’s request on September 20, 2022. (Doc. # 568

¶¶ 14, 18.)

3. The Superintendent’s Recommendation and the Board’s Vote

On or about the week of October 17, 2022, Mr. Richter recommended that the

District build the new, consolidated high school on the site donated by the City of

Valley. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 19.) He thus recommended the Valley site over the LaFayette

site.

Mr. Richter’s recommendation was based on several factors, including

infrastructure, access to utilities, access to athletic and competition fields, and size.

(Doc. #571 at 242-51; Doc. # 564-66 at 8.) However, in his final analysis, it came

down to proximity of students and mileage to the site.!? (Doc. # 564-64 at 11.) Both

the mean and median centers were closer to the Valley site for high school students,

as indicated in the chart showing the mean and median centers for the two existing

high schools:

MEAN CENTER

Identifies the geographic center (or center of concentration) of all students

Chambers County 9-12 Students

Shortest Distance Longest Distance Average Distance Total Mileage

to Mean Center to Mean Center to Mean Center to Mean Center

Valeyaonsenoor oi ee | dC

ees el as eat

fete Clerc] UE TMNT dosh a= 1ecUM mt Coal me [yer mele |e □□□ Leib)

Ol areunlsl=) Ore] (yyy mes ea Pema] (2p) a)

Shortest Distance Longest Distance Average Distance Total Mileage

to Median Center to Median Center to Median Center to Median Center

(Doc. # 564-66 at 8-9.)

'3 Another factor that impacted the decision was cost. The donated sites freed the Board

from having to spend public money to purchase a site and, with regard to the Valley site, to build

extensive athletic facilities. (Doc. #571 at 217-18.) In LaFayette, the football stadium option

was much less attractive. The athletic facilities already existing in the Valley area included a

football stadium with amenities and practice fields. (Doc. # 564-66 at 11; Doc. # 571 at 242.)

Also, the population growth is in the Valley area, and adequate infrastructure, such as a hospital,

is available. (Doc. #570 at 185-86.)

24

Mr. Richter also considered how his choice would affect transportation for

minority students. Based on mileage, by road networks, the LaFayette site overall

would require black high school students to travel farther than they would to the

Valley site. The total mileage black students would have to travel to the donated

LaFayette site is 4,921 miles, and the total mileage black students would have to

travel to the donated Valley site is 4,280.9 miles. (Doc. # 564-66 at 9.) Also,

proximity by roads for all high school students in the District is less mileage overall

to the Valley site than to the LaFayette site (6,628.8 miles for the Valley site versus

10,867.4 miles for the LaFayette site). (Doc. # 564-66 at 9, 12; Doc. # 571 at 236–

37.) Mr. Richter also considered how the transportation would affect those students

living farthest from the school and felt, based on his experience, that the District

could make accommodations to reduce the impact of a bus ride, such as providing

air conditioning, WIFI, and personal electronic devices. (Doc. # 541 at 242–51.)

Superintendent Chambley followed the recommendation of Mr. Richter. On

October 26, 2022, Superintendent Chambley recommended that the Board approve

the donated Valley property as the site for the new consolidated high school, subject

to the approval of this court. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 21; Doc. # 511-4 at 5.) The Board

approved the recommendation of the Valley site, with four in favor and two opposed.

(Doc. # 568 ¶ 22; Doc. # 511-4 at 3.) The Board did not vote on temporarily

consolidating high school students at the existing Valley High School. (Doc. # 568

¶ 23.)

Two Board members testified at the January 2023 trial. Board President

Jeffrey Finch voted in favor of the consolidation of the high schools and construction

of the new site in Valley. (Doc. # 573 at 267, 275.) He cast his vote “for the

betterment of the kids and administration of Chambers County School Board.”

(Doc. # 273 at 272.)

Board member, Lashae Herring, voted against the consolidation of the high

schools at the Valley site. (Doc. # 569 at 203.) Although she favors a consolidated

high school, she voted against the recommendation for two reasons. First, she wants

the school to “be in a neutral territory,” and not in the cities of Valley or LaFayette.

(Doc. # 569 at 203–04.) Second, she is concerned about the travel distance for some

students who live in rural areas, live with grandparents, and rely on bus

transportation for school. (Doc. # 569 at 204.) However, she was candid when the

court asked if any solution would satisfy most of the county. She responded: “I

doubt it.” (Doc. # 569 at 211.) There is no evidence disputing her conclusion.

4. Desegregation Advisory Committee

Some members of an advisory group—the Desegregation Advisory Group

(DAC)—also weighed in on both temporary and permanent consolidation of the high

schools.14 Prior to the Board vote, the DAC raised several concerns about the site

selection process and the selections of the Valley site for recommendation to the

Board. The DAC requested to be put on the Board agenda but was told no one could

speak because the discussion would be in executive session. The DAC then put its

concerns in writing, including a request for the Board to postpone voting. That

writing was provided to the Board prior to its vote. (Doc. # 568 at 5.)

At the trial, four members of the DAC testified that they opposed temporary

consolidation and that they supported permanent consolidation, but that they wanted

the new school built in a central location. (Doc. # 571 at 95–148.) Three of the

DAC members who testified were students at LaFayette High School, and the fourth

DAC member was a child nutrition professional who worked at Fairfax Elementary

School. (Doc. # 571 at 95, 118, 128, 139.) The three student members from Valley

High School did not testify, nor did they attend any of the DAC meetings. (Doc.

# 571 at 108.)

14 The DAC, which was established pursuant to this court’s July 5, 2022 Order, is an

advisory group with student and parent representatives from both the Valley and LaFayette

attendance zones. The Order directed that the DAC, whose membership must be at least twelve,

should have regular access to the superintendent and the board of education to address

desegregation issues and the progress of the changes to the District. The Order also directed the

DAC to meet at least twice annually until the closure of the case against the Chambers County

Board of Education. (Doc. # 493.) Up until the time of the January 2023 trial, the DAC met twice

a month. (Doc. # 571 at 98.)

5. The Other Sites

Prior to the Board’s vote, the District did not ascertain the availability of the

non-donated sites. The District did not know the cost to acquire any of these sites.

The District did not know if any of these sites would be donated or discounted. (Doc.

# 56 ¶ 11.) District representatives also did not officially visit any of the non-donated

sites to evaluate them as potential sites for the new, consolidated high school prior

to the vote. The District also did not know the transportation impact for any of these

sites or how much it would cost to build on one of these sites compared to building

on one of the donated sites. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 12.) Additionally, the District did not

obtain information regarding the accessibility, installation, or upgrade of utilities to

any of the non-donated sites. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 24.)

After the Board’s vote, at the District’s request, Chris Busby, the deputy

director for the Chambers County Development Authority, conducted utilities

research on the non-donated sites during November 2022. Mr. Busby completed

and submitted his analysis in the same month. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 24; Doc. # 569 at 5.)

He reported that most sites were not feasible. Either the landowners did not want to

sell the properties or the estimated costs to complete engineering and geotechnical

analysis on each site each of the sites could run as high as $300,000 per site or $3

million if all ten sites were to be evaluated effectively. Several sites did not have

sewer access or other important infrastructure. Some sites were privately owned,

and the owners expressed that they did not wish to sell or donate their sites to the

district for the purpose of the school. (Doc. # 569 at 12–34.)

6. Temporary Consolidation

The District also plans to consolidate the two high schools temporarily at the

existing Valley High School campus, beginning for the school year 2023–24. (Doc.

# 568 ¶ 29.) This consolidation also would include a change in the name of the

existing Valley High School, its colors, and its mascot to create a unified, neutral

high school. (Doc. # 574 at 181–82.) During temporary consolidation, the District

also would continue to offer career tech classes at Inspire Academy in LaFayette and

transport high school students to and from Inspire Academy during the school day.

(Doc. # 568 ¶ 31.) During temporary consolidation, there would be no students at

the current LaFayette High School campus. The District proposes to renovate the

current LaFayette High School building for the K-8 STEAM program at Eastside

Elementary School. But the District does not have a formal plan for the renovations.

It does not know if it has the financial ability to build a new high school and renovate

the current LaFayette High School for the STEAM program simultaneously. (Doc.

# 568 ¶ 30; Doc. # 571 at 13.)

The Board did not vote on temporary consolidation of all the District’s high

school students at Valley High School; that issue was not before the Board. But had

that issue been brought up for a vote, board member Ms. Herring testified that she

would have opposed temporary consolidation at the Valley High School. Ms.

Herring testified that she does not want the LaFayette High School students to have

to move twice. (Doc. # 569 at 204–05.)

7. Funding for the New Consolidated High School and Additional Site

Selection Evidence

A new high school would require at least 170,000 square feet to accommodate

1,000 students, and the current plan is for 183,000 square feet. (Doc. # 564-66 at 5;

Doc. # 571 at 258.) The District expects the new, consolidated high school to cost

$65 to $70 million, but it has not finalized the specifications for the new school. The

District expects that construction will take at least two years. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 7.)

To pay for construction, the District is projected to receive $1.8 million more

in local revenues in 2023 than in 2022. (Doc. # 570 at 103–04; Doc. # 564-23.) The

District also has funding from federal COVID-19 relief legislation (Elementary and

Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund), but that money will revert back to the

federal government if it is not allocated and spent by 2024. (Doc. # 570 at 105–07.)

The District also has been working with underwriters and bond agents. “[A]s long

as the interest rates stay in a range where debt service remains around $5 million,”

Superintendent Chambley confidently believes that the District can build the new

school without a tax increase. (Doc. # 570 at 108–09.) Based on the absence of

evidence of secured financing and architectural renderings for the new high school,

the court is unable to opine on these matters. At the same time, the court is mindful

that “[f]unding decisions are within the competence of the Board, whose powers, as

the Supreme Court has noted, are ‘plenary,’ in the absence of a constitutional

violation.” Lee v. Macon Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 584 F.2d 78, 82 (5th Cir. 1978).

At the trial, there was testimony about the median and mean centers of

population among black and non-black students. Both the mean and median centers

of high school population are in the Valley attendance boundary. (Doc. # 564-68.)

Additionally, seventy-two percent of high school students live in the Valley High

School boundary, while twenty-five percent of high school students live in LaFayette

High School boundary. (Doc. # 572 at 105.)

There was testimony that the median center does not account for “outlier”

high school students, that is, those high school students who live the farthest away

from their school. (Doc. # 572 at 13, 86–87, 90; Doc # 569 at 135; Doc. # 533-1

at 3.) No testimony defined precisely how far away a student must live to be an

“outlier” (Doc. # 572 at 90); however, on the court’s inquiry, the District provided a

chart, prepared by one of its experts (Hwang), that listed the number of high school

students, by race, who lived outside a twenty-mile radius of the proposed site in

Valley for the new consolidated high school. (Doc. # 564-69.) For the 2022–23

academic year, that number was forty-nine black high school students and nineteen

non-black high school students. This means that roughly ten percent of all black

high school students live outside the twenty-mile radius, while ninety percent of all

black high school students live within the twenty-mile radius. (Doc # 564-69.)

8. Current Bus Routes and Bus Routes for Temporary and Permanent

Consolidation of the District’s High Schools

(a) Current Bus Routes

For the 2022–23 academic year, there were forty-one bus routes that picked

up and dropped off students at the beginning and end of each school day. Fifteen

routes serviced the LaFayette attendance zone, and twenty-six routes serviced the

Valley attendance zone. (Doc. # 572 at 152; Joint Tr. Ex. 3.) There were an

additional twenty-seven bus routes that ran mid-day, the majority of which

transported students to and from Inspire Academy and/or the high schools for career

tech courses. (Doc. # 572 at 153.) The average number of students who rode the

bus varied from month to month; however, in November of the 2022–23 year, 103

LaFayette High School students and 219 Valley High School students rode the bus.

(Doc. # 572 at 155–56.) To and from school, about half of the LaFayette High

School students ride the bus, and slightly more than one-third of Valley High School

students ride the bus. (Doc. # 572 at 237.)

The ruralness of certain areas in the county increases bus travel for some

students of all races. For the 2022–23 academic year, there were eight bus routes

for LaFayette High School students, ranging from sixty to eighty-five minutes one

way.15 (Doc. # 564-15 (Jt. Trial Ex. 3); Doc. # 572 at 244.) The longest bus route,

one way, was eighty-five minutes, and on this route, there were four black high-

school students and no non-black high-school students. The travel time for the four

high school students on this route, however, was not eighty-five minutes, but sixty-

five to seventy minutes.16 (Doc. # 672 at 264.) Two of the bus routes were seventy-

five minutes, one way. On one route, there were no black high-school students and

seven white high-school students, and on the other seventy-five-minute route, there

were seventeen black high-school students, no white students, and five Hispanic

students. (Doc. # 564-15.) For the 2022–23 academic year, there were nine bus

routes for Valley High Schools students, ranging from sixty to seventy-five

minutes.17 On the longest, seventy-five-minute bus route, there were two black high-

school students and six non-black students. (Doc. # 564-15.) On the second longest

bus route of sixty-seven minutes, there were five black high-school students, and

15 The joint exhibit is a chart detailing bus routes, the number of students who rode the bus

for the beginning of the 2022–23 academic year to the time of trial, and the demographics of the

bus riders. The duration of bus travel reflects the longest time that the last student could be on a

bus route. Of course, not all students ride the whole route; students are picked up and dropped off

along the way. (Doc. # 564-15; Doc. # 572 at 165–66, 245.) And most routes include students in

elementary and middle school grades. Using the longest ride per route, which the parties argued,

does not reflect the average ride of a high school student per route.

16 For the 2022–23 academic year, one student rode the bus for 85 minutes on the afternoon

route; that student was in elementary school. (Doc. # 572 at 246–48.)

17 Eight of these nine routes transport high school students. (Doc. # 564-15.)

eight white high school students. On the third longest bus route of sixty-five

minutes, there were ten black high-school students, and five white high-school

students. (Doc. # 564-15.) For the 2022–23 year, the average ride time in the county

for the thirty-five daily bus routes transporting at least one high school student was

fifty-three minutes. (Doc. # 564-15.)

(b) Bus Routes for Permanent Consolidation at a New High

School at the Valley Site

After November 2022 (which was after the District moved this court to

approve the Valley site), the District created a plan for transporting current

LaFayette High School students to the new consolidated high school at the proposed

site in Valley.18 (Doc. # 572 at 173–77; Doc. # 564-19.) The transportation plan

proposes using the existing 2022–23 routes to transport LaFayette-zoned

elementary, middle, and high school students to Eastside Elementary School. From

Eastside Elementary School, high school students would travel to a hub at the present

location of Inspire Academy, which currently houses the District’s career tech

program.19 These high school students would then take one of four shuttle buses to

the consolidated high school in Valley. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 27; Doc. # 572 at 206.) This

18 The District did not create a transportation plan for any other site, including the donated

LaFayette site or the non-donated sites along Highway 50, in Fredonia, and in Cusseta. (Doc.

# 568 ¶ 26.)

19 Future use of the current Inspire Academy location and facilities is not at issue.

plan adds approximately twenty-five minutes to these students’ bus routes (one

way), (Doc. # 564-22’ Doc. # 568 ¶ 27), which is the same amount of time current

Valley High School students travel one-way to Inspire Academy for career tech

courses. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 31.) Students also could drive to Inspire Academy and then

take the bus from the academy to Valley High School. (Doc. # 572 at 202.)

The transportation plan also includes the creation of two additional routes.

These routes would take high school students, formerly zoned for LaFayette High

School, who live along the eastern and southern borders of Chambers County,

directly to the consolidated high school in Valley. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 28; Doc. # 572

at 173–77; Doc. # 564-22.) The new bus route for students from the eastern border

of the county would transport eight students (four of whom are black and four of

whom are white) and take approximately fifty minutes. The new bus route for

students from the southern border of the county would transport ten high-school

students (eight of whom are black and two of whom are white) and take

approximately fifty-five minutes. (Doc. # 572 at 173–176; Doc. # 564-22.) Because

all career tech courses would be onsite at the consolidated high school, the bus routes

between the two high schools and to and from Inspire Academy would no longer be

necessary. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 33; Doc. # 570 at 156.)

The District also has ordered six buses with air conditioning. Those buses

will be used for the district’s six longest routes. (Doc. # 572 at 176–77.)

(c) Bus Routes for Temporary Consolidation of the Two High

Schools at the Existing Valley High School

The District proposes using the same bus plan to transport current LaFayette

High School students to the existing Valley High School during temporary

consolidation. (Doc. # 572 at 194, 235.) As confirmed by the District’s director of

transportation, the plan is the same because the proposed Valley site to construct the

new combined high school is not far from the existing Valley site. (Doc. # 572 at

148–49, 235.)

The District also plans to continue offering career tech classes at Inspire

Academy during temporary consolidation of the two high schools at Valley High

School. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 31.) It would continue to bus students from the existing

Valley High School throughout the day to Inspire Academy, which is in LaFayette.

(Doc. # 572 at 194–95.) For a high school student formerly zoned for LaFayette

High School and living in the LaFayette area, he or she likely would have four

extended bus trips per day if that student elects to take career tech courses at Inspire

Academy. The student would (1) travel by bus from the LaFayette area to Valley

High School, (2) travel back to Inspire Academy in LaFayette for career tech

courses, (3) travel back to Valley High School, and (4) finally travel home to the

LaFayette area at the end of the school day. (Doc. # 572 at 195–197; 221–26.) These

students potentially would endure these long bus rides for two years, which is the

estimated timeframe for completion of the new high school. (Doc. # 572 at 227;

Doc. # 572 at 249.)

N. Plaintiffs’ Evidence About the District’s Selection of the Valley Site

Plaintiffs presented two experts at trial. The experts disagreed with the

District’s selection of the Valley site.

Robert Murray, with King Consulting from California, was offered as an

expert in school facilities and transportation planning. Mr. Murray testified that the

District’s community presentations were biased in favor of the Valley site. He also

testified that the District’s transportation cost analysis was overinflated. (Doc.

# 564-28.) The District admitted the error concerning the calculation of the

transportation cost analysis. (Doc. # 564-40; Doc. # 572 at 14–17; Doc. # 569

at 198–99.) The court has not relied upon the erroneous calculations.

Mr. Matthew Cropper was offered as an expert in K-12 school planning, with

a “specialty [in] facilitating comprehensive school redistricting studies as well as

demographic analysis and facility planning.” (Doc. # 564-38 at 2; see also Doc.

# 569 at 114.) By the time of trial, he had been studying the District’s school system

for over two years. He opined that the District did not conduct adequate research to

make an informed decision to reject the sites along Highway 50 and that reliance on

the median population center as a basis for selecting a site is not ideal because it fails

to account for “outliers.” (Doc. # 569 at 125–33; Doc. # 564-38 at 2.) He also

testified that the District should have selected a property in a central location, and

not in Valley, to reduce the overall transportation burden for all students. (Doc. #

564-38.)

Mr. Cropper’s testimony contradicts his earlier opinion in this case. In a

twenty-six-page report issued in March 2022, Mr. Cropper presented three options

for the District to “consider to help provide more demographically diverse schools

within the county.” (Doc. # 564-58.) The second and third options consolidated the

two high schools at Valley High School, and Mr. Cropper recommended the District

implement the third option. (Doc. # 564-58 at 7, 9.) He presented these options

based on “best practices when redistricting,” on the racial composition of the

proposed schools, on “school utilization,” on the students’ “distance to school,” on

the number of students affected, and “how students matriculate from elementary to

middle to high school (i.e., feeder patterns).” (Doc. # 564-58 at 4.)

At trial, Mr. Cropper testified that he made the recommendation in March

2022 to merge the two high schools at the existing Valley High School before he

knew that the LaFayette attendance zone was predominantly black. (Doc. # 569

at 147–48.) This testimony contradicts the information he provided in his March

2022 report. That report indicates that the impact on the race of the schools factored

into his decision (Doc. # 564-58 at 4), and it includes charts that identify each

school’s enrollment by race. These charts reflect that the schools in the LaFayette

attendance zone (LaFayette High School, J.P. Powell Middle School, and Eastside

Elementary School) have predominantly black enrollment. (Doc. # 570 at 35.) Mr.

Cropper’s about-face on the location of the merged high schools is not credible.

IV. DISCUSSION

The District proposes to close a racially identifiable high school (LaFayette

High School), to consolidate temporarily the student bodies of the District’s two high

schools at Valley High School, and to build a district-wide high school at a new site

in Valley. The discussion addresses, first, whether modifying the 1993 Agreed

Order to permit constructing the new high school in Valley is warranted; second,

whether permanent consolidation of the District’s high school students at a new,

consolidated school is constitutional; and third, whether temporary consolidation of

the District’s high school students at the existing Valley High School is

constitutional. For the reasons to follow, modification of the 1993 Agreed Order’s

location provision is warranted; permanent consolidation at the proposed Valley site

passes constitutional review; but temporary consolidation at the existing Valley High

School does not.

A. Modification of the 1993 Agreed Order’s provision as to the location of

the new, consolidated high school is warranted.

Plaintiffs support the District’s plan for the consolidation of the high schools

at a new, single facility—their dispute lies in the District’s proposal for the high

school’s proposed location. Plaintiffs argue that the 1993 Agreed Order requires

construction of the consolidated high school “at a site readily accessible to Alabama

state highway Route No. 50 between Lanett and LaFayette” and that the proposed

site in Valley violates this term. (Doc. # 577 at 7 (quoting Doc. # 564-4 at 16).)

That ends the issue for Plaintiffs: They argue that the District cannot build a

consolidated, district-wide high school at the proposed Valley site because the

location violates the thirty-year-old 1993 Agreed Order. Alternatively, Plaintiffs

argue that the District has not shown that a modification of the 1993 Agreed Order

is warranted. They contend that the location for the consolidated high school was

central to the purpose of the 1993 Agreed Order and that the District has not

demonstrated changed circumstances to warrant a modification to that order.

Moreover, Plaintiffs argue that, even if those arguments fail, the proposed location

is unconstitutional because it disproportionately burdens the District’s black

students. Plaintiffs also contend that the District should not be allowed to argue for

a modification when it has not formally done so in thirty years. (Doc # 577 at 9–13;

Doc. # 576 at 2-7.)

Taking a different position, the District points to the parties’ conduct over the

last three decades to argue for a modification of the 1993 Agreed Order.

Alternatively, the District contends that laches prevents Plaintiffs from seeking to

enforce the location provision in the 1993 Agreed Order. The District argues that,

after the 1994 failed tax referendum for financing a new high school, the parties—

in their negotiations and petitions filed throughout the years—have ignored the 1993

Agreed Order’s provision to construct a consolidated high school. For example, in

the 1990s, the parties jointly requested major construction projects for facilities

improvements at both high schools. (Doc. # 575 at 5–7.) The District also

emphasizes that the parties’ negotiations in 2022 resulted in a proposed consent

order, that although later withdrawn, did not mention a Highway 50 location for the

new high school, but instead focused on a neutral site selection that would not

“impose an unequal burden on students on the basis of race, to the extent practical.”

(Doc. # 575 at 4–5.) The District contends that Plaintiffs’ insistence on strict

adherence to the 1993 Agreed Order’s location provision is disingenuous and

contrary to the parties’ conduct. The District further contends that constructing the

district-wide site at the proposed Valley site passes constitutional muster.

(Doc. # 575 at 12–29.)

In the 1993 Agreed Order, the District “agree[d] to support the construction

and operation of a consolidated, district-wide high school facility at a site readily

accessible to Alabama state highway Route No. 50 between Lanett and LaFayette.”

(Doc. # 564-4 at 16.) The proposed Valley site is, by roadway, four-and-a-half to

five miles from Highway 50. (Doc. # 564 at 84.) The District has not argued that

the proposed Valley site is “readily accessible” to Highway 50, but rather has argued

for elimination of this provision in the 1993 Agreed Order. (See Doc. # 575 at 9–

12.) The court finds that modification of the 1993 Agreed Order is warranted.20

A consent decree embodies the voluntary agreement of the parties backed by

the enforcement power of the court. See R.C. ex rel. Ala. Disabilities Advoc.

Program v. Walley, 390 F. Supp. 2d 1030, 1043 (M.D. Ala. 2005) (citing Vanguards

of Cleveland v. City of Cleveland, 23 F.3d 1013, 1017 (6th Cir. 1994)). A district

court has inherent power to modify a consent decree. Jacksonville Branch,

N.A.A.C.P. v. Duval Cnty. Sch. Bd., 978 F.2d 1574, 1582 (11th Cir. 1992) (citations

omitted). A flexible standard applies to modifications of a consent decree for

institutional reform. Flexibility in modifying such decrees is important “where

efforts to implement the decree have been bogged down for years” and because these

decrees “reach beyond the parties involved directly in the suit and impact on the

public’s right to the sound and efficient operation of its institutions.’” Reynolds v.

McInnes, 338 F.3d 1221, 1226 (11th Cir. 2003) (quoting Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk

Cnty. Jail, 502 U.S. 367, 381 (1992)).

“[A] court faced with a motion to modify a consent decree in institutional

reform litigation must begin by determining the ‘basic purpose’ of the decree.”

United States v. City of Miami, 2 F.3d 1497, 1504 (11th Cir. 1993). If the provision

20 It is thus unnecessary to address the alternative laches argument.

to be modified “is central to the decree, or . . . ‘the most important element’ of the

decree, then the modification is likely to violate the basic purpose of the decree and,

therefore, will be forbidden.” Reynolds, 338 F.3d at 1226 (quoting City of Miami, 2

F.3d at 1504–05). But, if the provision “merely sets out one of several means of

accomplishing the purpose of the decree or one of several means of measuring

compliance with the decree’s objective, then the requested modification is not

necessarily prohibited.” Id. (quoting City of Miami, 2 F.3d at 1505).

If the proposed modification to a consent decree does not displace the decree’s

central purpose, the Supreme Court has established a two-pronged framework for

assessing whether a modification is warranted. First, the movant must show “a

significant change in circumstances” in either the law or the facts. Rufo, 502 U.S.

at 383. Second, if the movant meets its burden, the modification must be “suitably

tailored to the changed circumstance.” Id.

In Reynolds, drawing from Supreme Court and Eleventh Circuit precedent,

the Eleventh Circuit explained that modification of a consent decree based on a

factual change may be appropriate in these five situations: (1) where “changed

factual conditions [have made] compliance with the decree substantially more

onerous”; (2) “when a decree proves to be unworkable because of unforeseen

obstacles”; (3) “when enforcement of the decree without modification would be

detrimental to the public interest”; (4) when “significant time has passed and the

objectives of the original agreement have not been met despite the defendants’

efforts”; or (5) “when a continuation of the decree would be inequitable.” 338 F.3d

at 1226–27 (quotation marks and citations omitted).

With these principles in mind, the court turns to the parties’ contentions, and

finds that modifying the 1993 Agreed Order’s location provision is justified.

1. The location provision for constructing a district-wide high school is

not a basic purpose of the 1993 Agreed Order.

Plaintiffs argue that modifying the location provision is impermissible

because that provision is one of the 1993 Agreed Decree’s basic purposes. (Doc.

# 577 at 9–10.) It is not.

The basic purposes of the 1993 Agreed Order are set out in the order itself.

Those purposes were twofold: to resolve the parties’ disputes about (1) the relief

needed “to eliminate continuing vestiges of past discrimination and segregation in

the schools of Chambers County” and (2) the District’s proposed plan for multiple

school closures and consolidation, for grade reconfigurations, and for attendance

zone modifications. (Doc. # 564-4 at 3.) The eighteen-page 1993 Agreed Order

accomplishes these purposes through a detailed listing of required objectives for

school closures and consolidations, for student reassignments, and for

implementation of a comprehensive desegregation plan. One objective—the

construction of a district-wide high school that offers the same opportunities for all

the District’s high school students, including courses, instruction, and

extracurricular activities—furthers the goal of eliminating segregated, racially

identifiable schools and the vestiges of discrimination.21 For 30 years, this

objection—reflecting an education system that is unconstitutional—has existed.

The location of the new, consolidated high school was but one part of the required

objective for constructing a consolidated, district-wide high school and of an overall

plan for desegregation. (Doc. # 564-4.) It violates reason and the facts to argue that

a later change in the location of the district-wide high school singlehandedly would

destroy the wholistic purposes of the 1993 Agreed Order and the efforts for a unified,

single high school for the District. Cf. Rufo, 502 U.S. at 387 (“If modification of

one term of a consent decree defeats the purpose of the decree, obviously

modification would be all but impossible.”).

The court finds that the 1993 location provision for the consolidated high

school is not “‘the most important element of the decree,’ and modification of it is

not ‘likely to violate the basic purpose of the decree.’” Reynolds, 338 F.3d at 1228

(quoting City of Miami, 2 F.3d at 1504).

21 The United States agrees that “[c]onsolidating all high school students at one school,

using the current high school enrollment, would result in a combined enrollment (56% Black, 39%

White and 5% other) that better reflects the District’s overall racial composition.” (Doc. # 558 at

5.)

2. The District has shown a significant change in factual circumstances.

Plaintiffs next argue that, even if modification of the location provision is not

prohibited outright, the District has not shown that changed circumstances warrant

a modification of the 1993 Agreed Order. The District takes the opposite position.

Consideration of the third, fourth, and fifth situations articulated in Reynolds

support modification of the 1993 Agreed Order’s location provisions. Significant

time has passed without the construction of a district-wide high school,

notwithstanding the District’s efforts, and factual circumstances have changed over

the three decades that make it inequitable and detrimental to the public interest to

require the parties to adhere to the 1993 Agreed Order’s location provision for the

new district-wide high school.22 See Reynolds, 338 F.3d at 1226–27.

First, it cannot be disputed that “significant time has passed” and that the 1993

Agreed Order’s objective of a new consolidated high school has not been met. Every

year for the past thirty years, the District has opened the doors of its two high

schools. The unfortunate reality is that a Chambers County student who graduated

in 1993 from either Valley High School or LaFayette High School is now nearly

fifty years old and potentially a parent of a child who graduated in the same system.

22 The District argues that “changed factual conditions [have made] compliance with the

decree substantially more onerous” and (2) that the 1993 Agreed Order has proven “unworkable

because of unforeseen obstacles.” Reynolds, 338 F.3d at 1226–27. The court has considered these

changed factual conditions in its analysis.

The 1993 graduating classes of Valley High School and LaFayette High School have

watched future generations of the District’s students graduate, not from the promised

consolidated high school, but from either LaFayette High School or Valley High

School. Time has not stood still, and here time is measured in decades. Three

decades have passed, and there still is not a consolidated high school in the District.

The District’s good-faith efforts to comply with the 1993 Agreed Order to

build a consolidated high school faced immediate defeat. The financing fell through

in 1994 when the voters rejected the tax referendum designed to fund the

construction of the consolidated school. With that defeat, the good-faith focus of all

parties—both Plaintiffs and the District—shifted. (Doc. # 570 at 168–69).

Since 1994, all parties have proceeded in the public filings of this litigation as

if a new, district-wide high school was not on the horizon, was not near Highway

50, and indeed was not anywhere. As Superintendent Chambley, a life-long resident

of the area, summed it up:

I can remember growing up in the community and hearing . . . about a

consolidated high school for a long time and the public has been talking

about it for a long time . . . . However, other things have happened that

made the community and made us feel like that maybe it was not going

to happen. For example, renovations at certain buildings, the building

of a new football stadium, or the building of a new basketball facility,

or the building of two new band rooms, one at Valley and one at

LaFayette, that made it look like there would not be a consolidation.

(Doc. # 570 at 167.)

For many years, the issue of a new, consolidated high school lay dormant.

(See, e.g., Doc. # 570 at 167 (“I also early on was not quite sure about the 1993 order

because things had sat for so long. In 2015 when it was brought back up, from ‘93

to 2015 nothing really happened.” (Chambley)).) Since 2015, the parties have

represented that they have been working together in good faith to resolve this

litigation. (See Doc. # 358 (Joint Status Report, reporting that “[a]ll Parties will

work in good faith to remedy any areas of concern and work towards an

agreement.”); Doc. # 368 at 4 (“The Parties will continue to work in good faith to

address the desegregation obligations of Chambers County.”); Doc. # 372 (Order

noting that the parties’ filings indicate that they are working together in good faith);

Doc. # 395 at 3 (Joint Status Report, reporting that “[t]he Parties intend to continue

their negotiations in good faith . . .”); Doc. # 400 at 3 (“The Parties intend to continue

their negotiations in good faith regarding all areas of concern identified by”

Plaintiffs.); Doc. # 478 at 1 (“The parties have been negotiating in good faith and

have made substantial progress toward resolving this matter. Several minor issues

remain but the parties are extremely hopeful that those issues can be resolved, and a

Proposed Consent Decree submitted for the Court’s consideration on or before May

13, 2022.”); Doc. # 479 at 3 (“The parties have continued to negotiate in good faith

and have reached an agreement in principle.”).) Plaintiffs continually have joined

Defendant in representing the parties’ good faith efforts to resolve this litigation.

Even as recent as a year ago in the parties’ negotiations (although those

negotiations ultimately were unfruitful), Plaintiffs did not insist on a site for the new

high school that was readily accessible to Highway 50, but on a site that was “not on

either the current LaFayette or Valley High School campuses.” (Doc. # 480-1 at 3.)

Hence, while Plaintiffs fault the District for not giving its best effort and for not

requesting a modification of the location provision earlier, the fault, if there is fault

to be had, lies on both sides of the litigation.

The 1993 Agreed Order, after thirty years, has not achieved its objective to

provide a single, district-wide high school for its students. “[T]he time has come”

to modify the 1993 Agreed Order to prescribe another means to achieve this long

awaited and sought-after goal. See United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corp.,

391 U.S. 244, 251–52 (1968) (modification of consent decree warranted where it

had not achieved its objectives after ten years of operation).

The court further finds that it would be inequitable to require the District to

adhere to the thirty-year-old provision for the location of the district-wide high

school. The location of a district-wide high school must be viewed in the context of

the time period of the agreement. In the 1992–93 academic year, there were more

black students enrolled at LaFayette High School than at Valley High School: 361

black students attended Valley High School, and 439 black students attended

LaFayette High School. Today, significantly more black students attend Valley

High School than attend LaFayette High School. For the 2022–23 academic year,

289 black students attended Valley High School, and 173 black students attended

LaFayette High School. Today, 63 percent of the District’s black high school

students attend Valley High School.

Additionally, over the thirty-year period since the entry of the 1993 Agreed

Order, the overall attendance at LaFayette High School has decreased drastically.

For the 1991–92 academic year, the projected enrollment for LaFayette High School

was 514 students. (Doc. # 570 at 47–48.) Contrast that to today, where for the 2022–

23 academic year, LaFayette High School enrolled 205 students, a decrease of 61

percent over the thirty-year period. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 5; Doc # 570 at 167.) Today,

Valley High School, with 617 students enrolled during the 2022–23 academic year,

has three times as many students as LaFayette High School: Seventy-five percent

of the District’s high school students attend Valley High School, while twenty-five

percent attend LaFayette High School. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 5.)

These enrollment numbers align with the population trends of Chambers

County. Between 1990 and 2020, according to the U.S. Census data, the City of

LaFayette’s population decreased by 16.3 percent. (Doc. # 564-62.) Over the same

thirty-year period, the City of Valley’s population has increased by 28.6 percent.

(Doc. # 564-62.) Generally, the population is much larger in the Valley area than in

other areas of the county.

The three-decade shift in enrollment demographics and population growth

cannot be ignored when examining the continued propriety of the 1993 Agreed

Order’s location provision for the new, consolidated high school. In 1993, more of

the District’s black high school students attended LaFayette High School than Valley

High School, and the total number of high school students was more evenly

distributed between the two high schools. A new, consolidated high school at a

location readily accessible to Highway 50—the east-west corridor for travel between

LaFayette and Valley—made sense. Today though a modification of the location

provision makes sense when seventy-five percent of the District’s high school

students and sixty-three percent of the District’s black high school students attend

Valley High School, and the Valley area is growing in population.

Also, in 1993 as today, Lafayette High School operates on the Central Time

zone, and Valley High School operates on the Eastern Time zone. A more

geographically centered high school—to the extent a geographical center was what

was contemplated by the 1993 Agreed Order—would have helped minimize the

disruption that some of the students would have endured by attending school in a

time zone different from the one in which they lived. Today, Superintendent

Chambley is committed to operating the new district-wide high school on the Central

Time zone, and he has received support from governmental and private businesses

to also operate on the Central Time zone. (Doc. # 570 at 53–54, 146–49.) The use

of a single time zone will eliminate disruption and inconvenience for the District’s

students and their families.

These changed factual conditions make compliance with the Agreed Order’s

location provision for the new district-wide high school inequitable and detrimental

to the public interest. The citizens of Chambers County have entrusted their public

school officials with running the school system, and the public has a substantial

interest in public officials making large-scale decisions, such as where to build the

District’s sole high school, based on present facts. Requiring the District to adhere

to the location provision in the 1993 Agreed Order would be inequitable based on

changed factual conditions.

3. The proposed location of the Valley site is suitably tailored to the

changed circumstances.

Because the District has shown factual changes warranting a modification to

the 1993 Agreed Order’s provision for the location of the new, consolidated high

school, the court “should determine whether the proposed modification is suitably

tailored to the changed circumstance.” Rufo, 502 U.S. at 391. Here, the proposal is

a new, district-wide high school at the Valley site.

To determine whether the proposed modification is suitably tailored to the

changed circumstance, it cannot “create or perpetuate a constitutional violation.” Id.

at 392. So long as there is no constitutional violation, the public interest and

“[c]onsiderations based on the allocation of powers within our federal system,

require that the district court defer to local government administrators, who have the

‘primary responsibility for elucidating, assessing, and solving’ the problems of

institutional reform, to resolve the intricacies of implementing a decree

modification.” Rufo, 502 U.S. at 392 (cleaned up) (quoting Brown v. Bd. of Educ.,

349 U.S. 294, 299 (1955)). This means that the choice need not have been the court’s

choice.

The issue of whether the proposed location of the Valley site is suitably

tailored to the changed circumstances turns on whether consolidation of the two high

schools at the proposed Valley site is constitutional. The court concludes for the

reasons in the next section that permanent consolidation is constitutional.

B. The Constitutionality of Valley as the Proposed Permanent Location for

the Consolidated High School

The District proposes to close a predominantly black high school and to build

a school on a new site in Valley for all its high school students. The following

considerations guide the analysis of whether the District’s decision is

constitutionally permissible.

First, the court must examine whether the District “include[d] the objective of

desegregation in decisions regarding the construction and abandonment of school

facilities.” Harris v. Crenshaw Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 968 F.2d 1090, 1094–95 (11th

Cir. 1992) (citation omitted). Relevant to this inquiry is whether the District “ha[s]

complied in good faith with the desegregation decree since it was entered, and

whether the vestiges of past discrimination ha[ve] been eliminated to the extent

practicable.” Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U.S. 467, 492 (1992).

Second, because the District “proposes to close a school facility with a

predominately minority student body, there must be sufficient evidence to support

the conclusion that [its] actions were not in fact motivated by racial reasons.”

Harris, 968 F.2d at 1095. (citation omitted); see also Lee v. Macon Cnty. Bd. of

Educ., 448 F.2d 746, 753 (5th Cir. 1971) (“[I]t would be impermissible for the school

board to close formerly black schools for racial reasons.”).

Third, if closing LaFayette High School and consolidating the students (both

temporarily at Valley High School and permanently at the new school), “the burden

of desegregation must be distributed equitably; the burden may not be placed on one

racial group.” Harris, 968 F.2d at 1097.

The first consideration is not seriously in contention. Consolidating the

District’s two high schools in a single facility “accomplishes the objective of greater

desegregation,” Harris, 968 F.2d at 1093, and advances desegregation with respect

to the Green factors addressing student assignment, faculty, staff, resource

allocation, extracurricular activities, and facilities (more on transportation later), see

Green, 391 U.S. at 435, and the non-Green factor concerning the quality of

education, see Freeman, 503 U.S. at 492. See also supra note 5.

First, a single high school for all the system’s ninth through twelfth graders

eliminates a racially identifiable school (LaFayette High School), increases diversity

by unifying the District’s entire high school body, and disestablishes any dual

high-school system and its effects. Consolidation also effectively prevents “the

recurrence of the dual school structure.” Harris, 968 F.2d at 1096.

Second, for the faculty and staff, Superintendent Chambley testified that no

teacher and no staff member will lose his or her job. All will join the District’s ninth

through twelfth grade students at the single high school.

Third, consolidation of the District’s two high schools will allow a more

efficient use of resources and will equalize course offerings and extracurricular

activities. Students previously zoned for LaFayette High School will have the

broader selection of courses and extracurricular activities that have been available to

students at Valley High School. (Doc. # 570, at 152–54 (discussing the discrepancy

in course offerings available at each high school); Doc. # 443-8 (noting that Valley

High School offered fourteen extracurricular activities that were not available in

LaFayette High School, including national honor societies, national service clubs,

and sports teams for soccer, tennis and golf).) Additionally, the District’s high

school students will benefit from the consolidation of career tech courses at the new

high school. Students who elect to take career tech courses no longer will have to

allot two class periods for one course to account for the travel and can add an

additional course in their schedules.

Fourth, the new high school will give the District’s students a modern facility

that is neither on the LaFayette High School campus nor on the Valley High School

campus.

Consolidating Valley High School and LaFayette High School will have a

significant positive effect on desegregation. As even Plaintiffs’ expert agrees, the

consolidation of the high schools “clearly helps to provide more diverse

environments for as many students as possible,” even if “it is not perfect.”

(Doc. # 569 at 156.)

The court further finds that there is no evidence that the District acted with a

racial motivation in its decisions. No evidence was presented at the January 2023

trial that any black student at Valley High School objects to consolidation on racial

grounds or to the location of the school. The location of a consolidated high school

in Valley was once even championed by Plaintiffs’ expert. (See Doc. # 564-58 at 8,

10.) Plaintiffs suggest that the District has not met its burden to show that the closure

is not racially motivated. They argue that the District did not act in good faith in

selecting the Valley site. But the record yields a contrary conclusion.

Since 2015, the District has proactively engaged in efforts to achieve unitary

status for its school system. Those efforts included erecting the long-awaited new

high school for all the District’s high school students, and those efforts began in

earnest when, in November 2021, the District hired consultants at HPM for long-

range, master planning for the District, a plan that included consolidation of the high

schools and construction of a new high school to serve 1,000 students. (Doc. # 564-

66 at 3, 5.) Community meetings were conducted throughout the county dealing

with various issues concerning the schools and master planning. (Doc. # 564-66 at

3.)

In sum, the first two considerations—whether the District considered the

objective of desegregation in its decision to build a consolidated high school in

Valley and whether the District’s decision was motivated by racial reasons—land in

the District’s favor.

Plaintiffs’ central criticism is with the site selection. Plaintiffs argue that the

District’s proposed site is unconstitutional because it imposes a disproportionate

transportation burden on the District’s black students at LaFayette High School.

(Doc. # 577 at 15; Doc. # 559 at 20–22.) Closing LaFayette High School and

consolidating those students at a new, consolidated high school in Valley does affect

LaFayette-zoned black students more than white students because eighty-six percent

of LaFayette High School’s student body is black. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 5.) However, the

proposed plan—when viewed in context of a desegregation plan—does not impose

an unconstitutional transportation burden overall on the District’s black students.

First, sixty-two percent of the District’s black high school students (289

students) attend Valley High School, and they will experience no significant impact

in their transportation to the new high school, which will be close to their current

school. Thirty-eight percent (176 students) of the District’s black high school

students attend LaFayette High School. For most of the high school students in the

LaFayette attendance zone who ride the bus (which is one half of the student body),

their travel time to the new high school in Valley will increase by approximately

twenty-five minutes. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 27.) The twenty-five minutes is based on the

travel time from the bus hub in LaFayette to the consolidated high school in Valley.

To ease the burden of transportation on some of the LaFayette High School’s black

students, two direct routes from the farthest reaches of the county will be

implemented. (Doc. # 572 at 238–239.) The District’s two new, non-stop bus routes

will eliminate the increased bus times for twelve black students who live in the

eastern and southern areas of the county. (Doc. # 572 at 173–176; Doc. # 564-22.)

Second, consolidating the career tech courses at the new high school benefits

all students, regardless of race or ethnicity. No student must board a bus, travel

offsite to Inspire Academy, and expend one class period for transportation. For the

197 black high school students at Valley High School who took career tech courses

in 2022–23, they will experience a fifty-minute decrease in their bus travels for each

day they previously had to travel to Inspire Academy. (Doc. # 565-2 at 1.) For the

187 LaFayette High School students, their gain is less—they will save ten minutes

in bus travel (Doc. # 565-2 at 1)—but they will gain a class period for their

schedules.

Third, both the mean and median centers of the District’s high school

population are in the Valley attendance zone. The area surrounding Valley is more

densely populated than that surrounding LaFayette. As the Eleventh Circuit has

recognized, a plan for schools near population growth areas “is in keeping with the

general rule that students should be transported from areas of lesser population

density to areas of greater population density.” Harris, 968 F.2d at 1093. The

District has configured a reasonable plan for transporting students in the LaFayette

attendance zone to the new high school.

Fourth, ninety percent of all black high school students live within a twenty-

mile radius of the proposed Valley site. (Doc # 564-69.) While it is true that most

LaFayette High School students have increased bus rides, the Board has devised

reasonable solutions to otherwise insolvable circumstances: geographic dispersion

of students. See, e.g., Harris, 968 F.2d at 1097 (holding that “[t]ransporting these

children to Brantley rather than to Dozier, which will add, at most, ten miles to their

bus ride, is not unreasonable” and that there was “no reasonable alternative to

transporting Dozier’s students to Brantley”).

Also, Plaintiffs want the high school more centrally located on Highway 50.

It is a laudable goal. As Superintendent Chambley admitted, “[t]here’s not a perfect

scenario or a perfect situation. In a perfect situation, a middle scenario would

probably be better if we could afford that location, if we could afford that and do

everything that we needed to do.” (Doc. # 570 at 131.) The evidence establishes

that sites on Highway 50 identified by the District’s expert were not viable. Either

the landowners did not want to sell the land or serious expense would have been

required for sewage and water. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 24; Doc. # 569 at 5, 12–34.) Instead,

the donated properties in Valley and LaFayette gave significant advantages. But the

District concluded that transporting Valley High School students—who comprise

seventy-five percent of the District’s high school population (Doc. # 568 ¶ 5)—to

the proposed LaFayette High School was not a viable alternative. It is true, as

Plaintiffs lament, that most of the District’s white students attend Valley High

School and thus will not experience increased travel times. However, the majority

of the District’s black high school students live in the Valley attendance zone, and

the overwhelming majority of all the District’s high school students live in the

Valley attending zone. The District concluded that transporting seventy-five percent

of the District’s high schools students to an attendance zone where only twenty-five

percent of the District’s high school students live would not equitably distribute the

transportation burden. The court will not disturb that local, multi-faceted policy

decision.

It is true that, because of this plan, an indeterminate few black and white high

school students will suffer an increased travel burden. But the burdens of the outliers

who form a small percentage of the overall student population cannot dictate the

overall plan and its benefits for all high school students in the county system.

B. The Constitutionality of Valley High School as the Temporary Location

for all the District’s High School Students

The District’s temporary consolidation plan yields a different result. The

District’s plan to close LaFayette High School and temporarily consolidate all high

school students at Valley High School in Fall 2023 before the new high school is

constructed would disproportionately burden the black students at LaFayette High

School. Several considerations support this conclusion.

First, LaFayette High School’s black students will have to integrate into the

facility of their rival high school, while more than ninety percent of the white

students will be on their home turf at Valley High School. While Valley High

School’s name, mascot, and colors will change (Doc. # 574 at 181–82), memories

of Valley High School are not likely to fade. (See Doc. # 571 at 149, 155–56

(testimony from LaFayette High School’s counselor about “the homefield

advantage” for Valley High School students during temporary consolidation and

about anxiety and fear expressed by LaFayette High School students on having to

temporarily consolidate at Valley High School).) Relatedly, citizens also expressed

concerns at the public hearings held in June 2022 and December 2022 that the

temporary consolidation would turn into permanent consolidation at the existing

Valley High School. (Doc. # 495 at 12.) Until plans are finalized, financing is

secured, and groundbreaking has occurred, those concerns cannot be dismissed.

They are legitimate and weighty.

Second, Dr. Chambley testified that the District feels that, while the temporary

solution is “not perfect,” it is “reasonable.” (Doc. # 574 at 182; see also Doc. # 571

at 55.) However, the Board did not put the issue of temporary consolidation up for

a vote. (Doc. # 568 ¶ 23.) It voted only on permanent consolidation at a new high

school at the Valley site. There is no official stamp of approval by the Board for

temporary consolidation.

Third, LaFayette High School students, but not Valley High School students,

will be forced to change schools twice—first to the Valley High School campus, and

then to the new, district-wide high school. Ms. Herring echoed this concern,

testifying that she does not want the LaFayette High School students to have to move

twice. (Doc. # 569 at 204–05.) At the December 2022 public hearing, the court

heard serious concerns from residents about temporary consolidation. (Doc. # 529.)

Fourth, the District’s position is to use temporary consolidation to integrate

the high school student body immediately and allow for the renovation of the

existing LaFayette High School for a new STEAM academy. (Doc. # 570 at 151–

55.) However, the District did not present evidence of a timeline for the renovations

or a financial plan, and it has not yet hired an architect. (Doc. # 571 at 11–12.)

Superintendent Chambley also admitted that he does not know whether the District

has the financial capacity both to build a new high school and to renovate the current

LaFayette High School. (Doc. # 571 at 12.)

Fifth, temporary consolidation at the current Valley High School does not

equally distribute the burdens of desegregation among the black and non-black

students who take courses at Inspire Academy. See United States v. Hendry Cnty.

Sch. Dist., 504 F.2d 550, 554 (5th Cir. 1974) (On the issue of “whether the proposed

location of the new school is a proper one under all the circumstances,” the court

must “ensure that the burdens of desegregation are distributed equally among all

classes of citizens.”). As Mr. Mitchum conceded, under temporary consolidation,

a LaFayette student with a class at Inspire Academy might have to ride a bus to

Valley, then take two twenty-five-minute bus rides during the school day (Valley to

Inspire Academy, Inspire Academy back to Valley), and then take a bus from Valley

to the hub at Inspire Academy to get on a bus to go home. (Doc. # 571 at 143; Doc.

# 572 at 223.) Requiring only the students of the predominantly black high school

to endure extended bus rides to take career tech courses is onerous. Superintendent

Chambley agreed that “the travel burden [from temporary consolidation] only affects

those students from LaFayette High School . . . .” (Doc. # 571 at 56.) Temporary

consolidation of the District’s high school students at Valley High School would

violate the Constitution.

V. CONCLUSION

The Chambers County Board of Education had a difficult decision to make to

move its system forward for its high school students. As one Board member

testified, whatever decision the Board makes about consolidating its high school

students under a single new roof, and the court approves, it will not please all

Chambers County citizens. (Doc. # 569 at 211.) It is not even close.

The Chambers County Board of Education’s decision to consolidate the two

high schools and build a new high school on the proposed site in the City of Valley

is a warranted modification of the 1993 Agreed Order and meets constitutional

standards. Any shortcomings in that decision are not matters of constitutional

significance, but rather fall within the Board’s primary responsibility for solving the

peculiar problems of its local school system. See Rufo, 502 U.S. at 392. However,

the temporary consolidation of the high school students at the existing campus of

Valley High School would cause the students at LaFayette High School, a

predominantly black school, to bear a disproportionate transportation burden under

the plan, and thus would be unconstitutional.

Accordingly, it is ORDERED that the Board’s Motion for Approval of Site

for New Consolidated High School and for Approval to Build the New High School

is GRANTED, and that the Board’s Motion for Authorization to Temporarily

Consolidate High School Students is DENIED. (Doc. # 500.)

It is further ORDERED that the Chambers County Board of Education shall

file progress reports, commencing October 31, 2023, with the court on the planning

and construction for the new high school every ninety days.

DONE this 22nd day of September, 2023.

/s/ W. Keith Watkins

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE