Tag: Gardendale schools

Appeals Court Asks Whether It Can Legally Consider Gardendale School-Separation Case

The appeal of a federal judge’s decision in the Gardendale school breakaway case may hit an unexpected roadblock.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta has issued a “jurisdictional question” asking all parties in the case whether the ruling issued in April by U.S. District Judge Madeline Haikala could be considered a final judgment, since the ruling did not give complete and final control of Gardendale’s four schools to the city right away.

Instead, it allowed the city to take over Gardendale and Snow Rogers elementary schools in the coming academic year. The order laid out a process for the city to follow to ensure desegregation efforts over the next three years before she would hand over control of Gardendale High and Bragg Middle schools. Read more.

Gardendale School Board Appeals Federal Court Ruling, Asks for Full Control of All Schools in the City Right Away

Lawyers for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and for the Gardendale Board of Education agree on something.

They both want Gardendale’s takeover of two elementary schools in the city to be delayed by federal courts.

The Gardendale board filed two motions Tuesday. One informed the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that it intends to cross-appeal a federal judge’s decision allowed the new system to take over operation of the two schools for the coming academic year. The other asked the original judge to stay her own ruling, delaying the order’s implementation until the board’s appeal and that of the NAACP are handled by the appellate court.
Gardendale is appealing Haikala’s late April ruling because it feels she should have ruled entirely in its favor, allowing it to take control of all four JefCoEd schools inside the city’s limits, including Gardendale High and Bragg Middle schools.

The NAACP, on the other hand, is asking for a stay so it can argue that Gardendale shouldn’t be able allowed to take control of any of the schools. Read more.

Students Purportedly Wearing “Blackface” in Online Photos Rekindle Racial Allegations in Gardendale’s Bid to Form Its Own School System

Earlier Stories

What’s Next? Residents Speak out About Next Steps for Gardendale’s New School System

Judge Stands with Order: Gardendale Can Take Steps Toward Separate School System
NAACP Asks Judge to Reconsider Allowing Gardendale to Start Its Own School System
NAACP Plans to Ask Judge to Reconsider Gardendale School Order; Ruling in Case Defies Conventional Procedure
Judge Haikala Is No Stranger to the Spotlight
Federal Judge Gives Gardendale Control Over City’s Elementary Schools, Lets JeffCo Keep Middle and High Schools for Now.
Read Haikala’s May 9 order
Read Hiakala’s initial ruling.

Judge Stands with Order: Gardendale Can Take Steps Toward Separate School System

A federal district judge has declined to reconsider her ruling two weeks ago that allows Gardendale to break away from the Jefferson County Schools on a limited basis, even though she found that Gardendale’s motives for forming its own municipal school system were racially motivated.

In a 49-page supplemental memorandum opinion issued Tuesday morning, U.S. District Judge Madeline Haikala turned down the request by attorneys for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, representing the original plaintiffs in the landmark Stout v. Jefferson County Board of Education case. That case resulted in the forced desegregation of county schools nearly half a century ago. The attorneys contended Haikala’s finding of racial motivation did not match up with allowing Gardendale to proceed with its separation. Read more

Read Haikala’s May 9 order

Earlier Stories
NAACP Asks Judge to Reconsider Allowing Gardendale to Start Its Own School System
Read Hiakala’s initial ruling.
NAACP Plans to Ask Judge to Reconsider Gardendale School Order; Ruling in Case Defies Conventional Procedure
Judge Haikala Is No Stranger to the Spotlight
Federal Judge Gives Gardendale Control Over City’s Elementary Schools, Lets JeffCo Keep Middle and High Schools for Now.

What They’re Saying
Whites Only: School Segregation Is Back, From Birmingham to San Francisco (Newsweek)
Judge: Mostly White Southern City May Secede From School District Despite Racial Motive (Washington Post)
Judge Lets White Alabama Town Secede From School District Despite ‘Race’ Being a Factor (NBC News)
A Federal Judge Is Letting an Alabama School District Return to Segregation (Salon)
A Southern City Wants to Secede From Its School District, Raising Concerns About Segregation (Washington Post)

Judge Haikala Is No Stranger to the Spotlight

U.S. District Judge Madeline Hughes Haikala, who is drawing attention for her ruling in the Gardendale school case, has been no stranger to headlines in high-profile Alabama cases since she became a judge in 2013.

She is handling the Hoover City Schools’ attendance rezoning issue, which could affect school desegregation in that system. She was the judge in a 2014 Huntsville City Schools desegregation case. And in 2016, she threw out charges and acquitted a Madison police officer accused of using excessive force against an Indian grandfather injured while visiting his son; her actions came after two juries deadlocked on verdicts.

NAACP Plans to Ask Judge to Reconsider Gardendale School Order; Ruling in Case Defies Conventional Procedure

U.S. District Judge Madeline Hughes Haikala has given Gardendale residents the keys to some of the schools in their city even though she asserted that their effort to withdraw from the Jefferson County Schools system is racially motivated.

It’s a contradiction that raised an eyebrow for former federal judge U.W. Clemon, and it’s why he and his colleagues on the legal team for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund plan to file a motion asking Haikala to change her order and halt Gardendale’s takeover.

“It’s called a motion to alter,” Clemon said Wednesday. “In light of her more important finding that the Gardendale school board did not carry its burden of proof that the new school system would not impede the desegregation of the Jefferson County Schools, then there is no legal basis on which to approve the formation of the new system.”

Clemon’s planned motion would be a step short of a formal application to the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. Read more

Federal Judge Gives Gardendale Control Over City’s Elementary Schools, Lets JeffCo Keep Middle and High Schools for Now.

The City of Gardendale has tried for more than three years to break away from the Jefferson County Schools to form its own municipal system. The county system has tried equally hard to keep that from happening.

On Monday, a federal judge gave each side some of what they wanted, but maybe not enough to satisfy either.

U.S. District Judge Madeline Haikala ruled that the Gardendale City Schools – a system that has existed as only a legal entity for three years, without any schools to operate – may take over Snow Rogers and Gardendale Elementary schools for the 2017-2018 academic year. But Gardendale High and Bragg Middle schools will stay in the Jefferson County system, for at least the next year “and until this Court orders otherwise,” in the judge’s words. Read more.