School board attorney: ‘no basis for suit’ Lawsuit filed against APSD over AVAP

The Avoyelles Parish School District may once again come under continuing federal review if a recent lawsuit request is granted.
The board had been operating under a desegregation order until a few years ago, when the federal government stepped back and allowed the board to run its system without overview. The recent suit would bring back the original 1987 desegregation case, where federal approval is needed for the way school enrollments are handled.
Avoyelles District Attorney Charles Riddle says there is no basis for the current suit.
“The District Attorney’s office is handling (the suit) and we believe it should be dismissed because the case has been closed,” Riddle said. “No discrimination has been alleged (in the new suit).”
The current suit concerns who and how to run the alternative school program. The suit indicates it should be run by a private company with more experience, instead of the school board who is currently operating it.
Allen Holmes, the plaintiff in the case who has been very active in civil rights for Avoyelles African-Americans over the past several years, said the suit will be the first of “many questions” the current board needs to answer.
“It is not a black or white issue, it is an issue of what is right for the kids in these schools and the public,” Holmes said. “They wouldn’t listen to then Superintendent Blaine Dauzat and now we are set to go to court and they are going to be surprised. They are running the board like a private business.”
The suit, filed in April, is to reopen the case, or as an alternative, asks for a motion of contempt regarding the Avoyelles Virtual Alternative Program (AVAP).
According to the suit, the 2015 board intentionally did not comply with four of the Green factors - student assignment, faculty assignment, staff assignment and facilities in operating the Avoyelles Virtual Alternative Program. The Green factors were established from the Green v. County School Board of New Kent Country 1968 which is used as a “measuring stick for determining disparities within school districts that could lead to segregation.”
The suit claims the factors were originally agreed upon during the unitary status agreement, which ended the nearly 50 year desegregation order for the Avoyelles Public School System. Schools were first desegregated in 1971, then adjusted again in 1988.
According to Holmes’ suit, beginning in 2019-2020, the new Avoyelles Parish School Board had intentions of doing away with everything agreed upon during the desegregation settlement.
The suit alleges the AVAP, where students with discipline problems are sent to continue their education until they are returned to their zoned school, was operated in a substandard manner after a contract was not renewed with Ombudsman Educational Services to run the program.
The suit reads in part “Ombudsman Educational Services did a wonderful job running the Avoyelles Virtual Alternative Program, the students responded well and that improvement was reflected in attendance, performance and discipline...However, the Avoyelles Parish School Board, in a 6-3 vote, decided to not renew the contract with Ombudsman Educational Services for the 2021-2022 school year and resume internally operating the Avoyelles Virtual Alternative Program.”
The vote for the board to take over running AVAP from the private company without a reason, Holmes alleges, is a violation of the green factor agreements.
“They couldn’t run it before, you need an expert to run it,” Holmes said. “The board reversed a lot of the things agreed on in federal court and gave the answer of ‘we don’t have to answer to you.’”
Holmes further alleges the board hired an outside law firm out out of Metairie who misguided the board into believing they did not have to follow the unitary status agreements. After receiving that information, Holmes said the board re-instated Riddle as the board attorney.
Holmes’ suit “asserts that the Avoyelles Parish School Board has a poor prior track record for operating the Avoyelles Virtual Alternative Program (and) fears it currently (is) being operated in a substandard building; and the net result will be a disparate impact of discrimination against the African-American students that is nearly 80% of the total population and male.”
According to Holmes, Ombudsman Educational Services was being paid $500,000 to run AVAP but that federal money is now being used by APSB.
“I was in court with desegregation for 40 something years then they violated federal court order in 2015,” Holmes said. “They took the system that was 90% value to the school system and chose to run it themselves and collect the money. They did all of this without the approval from the state.”
According to Riddle, the school system must file an answer to the petition by May 25 with the federal court.