DECATUR — Once again, Caucasian students in the Decatur School District will not be able to transfer to a neighboring district under the school choice law, according to the School Choice Eligibility Report released by the Arkansas Department of Education on Thursday.

Under the Arkansas Public School Choice Act of 1989, students can transfer to an outside school district if they submit an application by July 1.

However, the law containsan exception to protect against segregation. It prevents any students from "transferring to a nonresident district where the percentage of the student's race exceeds that percentage in the student's resident district" unless both districts fall into an acceptable range determined by the ADE for the county. Decatur fell out of the acceptable range for Caucasian students for the first time last year.

Decatur superintendent Larry Ben pointed out that the law doesn’t focus on white students, but applies the same for any race.

The School Choice Eligibility Report for the 2012-2013 school year, available on the ADE web site, shows the percentage of Caucasian students in Decatur has fallen to 55.6 percent of the school population, from 57.17 percent last year. The acceptable range for Benton County is 58.5 to 75.21 percent.

Meanwhile the percentage of Hispanic students has risen from 30.71 percent of the district’s population to 32.79 percent of the population. The acceptable range for Benton County is 20.43 percent to 26.27 percent. The percentages are based on Oct. 1, 2011, enrollment,and races that represent less than 10 percent of the school population do not count towards school choice.

Under the law, the only district in Benton County that Caucasian students in Decatur are eligible to transfer to is the Rogers School District, which has 51.8 percent Caucasian students.

Students wishing to transfer out of the Decatur School District can appeal to the school board for a transfer to a non-resident district. Last year the Decatur School Board voted to deny 10 transfer requests and accept two requests.

News, Pages 11 on 04/04/2012