Normandy High School Graduates. Photo: Normandy Schools Collaborative

Parents in the low-income, predominantly black Normandy School District in St. Louis, Mo., have been made to feel unwelcome for years, as public school officials repeatedly fought to deny them the right to choose new public schools. Their saga may finally be coming to a close, as a three-judge panel this week unanimously rebuffed school officials' latest efforts to thwart Missouri's public-school transfer law.

The transfer law allows parents of students enrolled in "unaccredited" public school districts to request transfers to public schools in higher-performing districts. (Districts lose accreditation if  the school fails to meet certain performance goals.) The law was passed in 1993, but went largely unnoticed until two parents sued to transfers out of the then-unaccredited Clayton and St. Louis Public School districts.

Public school officials fought the law through trial and appeals courts until 2013, when the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of public school transfers. With that ruling, nearly a thousand children in the persistently struggling Normandy School District rushed for the door, causing a near-collapse of the small inner-city district, prompting a takeover by the state Department of Education.

Unfortunately for the parents, a victory at the Supreme Court did not secure their right to choose a new school, as public school officials scrambled to undo the law.

Renaming the district the "Normandy Schools Collaborative," state officials at the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) claimed the "new" district was suddenly no longer unaccredited. That interpretation meant thousands of future transfers could be denied. State officials created other rules to force students back into Normandy. Addressing one legitimate flaw in the transfer law, officials stated public-school transfer students could only receive $7,200 in public funding. Districts were not required to accept the students with this lower payment, and wealthier districts had long been charging more than $7,200 to accept transfers. (more…)