School System Neglects to Inform Public About Hearing

By Julie Hubbard, The Macon Telegraph, Ga.

Jan. 12–Lawyers and Bibb school officials assembled at the federal courthouse Thursday for what they thought could be a historic day for the school system.

Instead, the hearing they had gathered for was postponed because of a procedural mistake by the school system.

The hearing, during which a judge could have released the school system from a federal desegregation order, was rescheduled for Feb. 12 at 10 a.m.

U.S. District Judge Wilbur D. Owens Jr. could decide that day whether the Bibb County school system should be declared “unitary,” or one integrated system.

The hearing would have been held Thursday, but the Bibb County school system’s communications office did not give prior notice of the hearing to students and parents as required, allowing them to file objections. Also, a newspaper advertisement from the school system that ran in December gave the incorrect hearing date.

Attorneys rescheduled the hearing so the public would have a chance to respond.

Warren Plowden, the school system’s attorney, was angered by the “oversight,” saying, “I thought we’d be through by now and on to the next case.”

“We don’t think it was ill intent,” said Damon Hewitt, an NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund attorney who flew to Macon from New York for the hearing. “We thought it was important that the black community have the opportunity to express any concerns they have.”

If the school system is declared unitary, it would remove the school system from a 1970s desegregation order.

It would also phase out the system’s majority-to-minority transfer program, which has allowed hundreds of black students to transfer to majority-white schools.

Plowden and Hewitt both said Thursday they were concerned that no objections to the prospective ruling had been filed by the Dec. 26 deadline. Attorneys discovered “a combination of errors,” including the mistake of not sending home notices with students, they said.

“They were supposed to be sent out in December,” Plowden said. “We’re just going to do it again.”

Notices of the February hearing should go home with students by Wednesday, he said. The public still can submit objections until the hearing, and the school system will have forms available on its Web site.

“It was an honest mistake,” Hewitt said afterward. “I just want to say it was a good move for the judge and the Board of Education to reschedule this hearing because the public did not know about it.”

To contact Julie Hubbard, call 744-4331 or e-mail jhubbard@macontel.com [mailto:jhubbard@macontel.com].

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Macon Telegraph, Ga.

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