The Normandy School District is continuing its legal fight against Missouri, despite the state’s refusal to release district funds to pay for it.
On Friday, attorneys representing the troubled school system filed another motion in St. Louis County Circuit Court asking for a temporary restraining order against the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which won’t let the district pay its legal fees.
The motion also seeks to restrain the state from withholding more than $2 million from Normandy that the district has yet to pay to area districts for the tuition of students who transferred out of Normandy. And it attempts to stop the Missouri Board of Education from lapsing the district on June 30 and restarting it the following day as a state-run school system.
The litigation puts Normandy and the education department on opposite sides of a legal battle over Normandy’s future and more broadly, the constitutionality of the state transfer law that has brought it to this point.
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The latest filing comes just days before the state board is scheduled to meet in Jefferson City to approve fundamentals, such as a budget and key staff, that the new Normandy — the “Normandy Schools Collaborative” — will need to get started.
State educators were working with district administrators Friday on the transition. The education department has been in control of Normandy’s finances since February. In a letter last month, the department said Normandy lacked authorization to spend money on the lawsuit, because the state never approved it. As for the latest development, “The department is reviewing the motion and we will be referring the matter to the Attorney General’s office,” said Nancy Bowles, a spokeswoman.
District officials hired law firms Summers Compton Wells and White Coleman & Associates in November to research potential litigation related to the school transfer situation. As of May 28, the school system had paid them about $83,500, according to the district.
At a recent gathering of Normandy teachers, union leaders suggested that they chip in if needed to keep the lawsuit alive.
“Even if we have to have a bake sale, pass the hat,” said Graylon Brown, with the Missouri National Education Association. “It’s that important.”
Seven school district residents, including School Board President William Humphrey, also are plaintiffs.
In June 2013, a Missouri Supreme Court ruling upheld the school transfer law that prompted about 1,000 children to leave the unaccredited district for higher performing schools. Approximately $10 million in tuition and transportation expenses has led to Normandy’s near-insolvency.
The lawsuit accuses the 20 area districts that took in Normandy students of charging inflated tuition rates that far exceeded the actual costs of educating the children. The education department had assured receiving districts that it would withhold state money from Normandy if it did not pay tuition expenses.
The Normandy School Board has yet to pay tuition for April, May and June. Friday’s motion argues the payment obligations “are unlawful and unconstitutional, have devastated and will further devastate the Normandy School District’s finances.”
The motion for the restraining order is scheduled to go before Judge Steven Goldman on June 20.
