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VIDALIA, La. — The Concordia Parish School Board voted no on the consent order that the Department of Justice issued to end its nearly 60-year-old desegregation case after more than 500 parish residents came to a public forum Tuesday to voice their opinion on the matter.

Furthermore, Attorney General Liz Murrill’s office offered up its services to defend the parish in federal court at no cost to the school board, and the school board accepted.

Both the vote not to approve the consent order and the vote to enter a cooperative endeavor with the AG’s office passed 8-0, with school board member Wayne Wilson absent.

However, school board president Lisette Forman stated for the record that Wilson also did not support the consent order that would uproot students from Vidalia and send them to Ferriday schools in an effort to equalize the number of white and Black students.

The majority of residents and parents who spoke out against the proposal on Tuesday said their issue with it was not about race. Rather, they voiced concerns about disrupting the flow of community-based schools, increasing drive time and transportation costs, the social and emotional damage caused to students who have to switch schools, and the sense of pride they have in their current school system.

Some went as far as to say they would leave the parish for another school system if the school board did pass the consent order.

The school board had a Dec. 31 deadline to provide an answer to the Department of Justice regarding the consent order.

The School Board’s Attorney John Blanchard clarified that the deadline was not a deadline to dispose of the 1965 desegregation case.

“This case has been pending since Nov. 30, 1965. There are probably 10 to 12 continued desegregation cases pending in the state,” said Attorney Jon Guice, who also represents the school board. “The whole purpose of the desegregation lawsuit is to bring the system into a unitary status, and for the federal judge who’s been overseeing this case to relinquish control back to the school board. And when that happens, we call that unitary status. The judge has signaled to us that the court is ready to make that handoff, but he has invited the parties to come together, and if they cannot reach an agreement as to how that can be done through a resolution, then it will require a trial and litigation there. So those are the options. Each has their benefits and their cost, but the Justice Department’s proposal that they’ve been discussing with Mr. Blanchard is what is going to ultimately come before this board.”

The consent order suggests consolidating kindergarten through 8th-grade schools by grade level and possibly closing or turning the Vidalia Lower Elementary school into a primary school and slightly adjusting the boundaries for Ferriday and Vidalia High Schools to move approximately 93 students — based on last school year’s enrollment — from Vidalia to Ferriday.

The proposal was only just received by the school board in the first week of December, Blanchard said. In October, before receiving the proposal, the school board met with the AG in a closed-door meeting to discuss options in anticipation of it. Upon receiving the consent order, the school board made the decision to make it public at Tuesday’s forum and receive community feedback.

Morgan Brungard, who works for AG Murrill, said, “We are aware that the board and the community are unhappy with the changes that the Department of Justice is asking the board to make. In fact, we received a petition tonight, 862 signatures, asking the board to vote no on this proposal.” … “I am here tonight to tell the board and the community that the Attorney General, Liz Murrill, hears you and we share your concerns. We urge the board not to accept the DOJ proposal because it is premature and because it is bad for the board, bad for the community and bad for the state.”

Murrill said the reason that the proposal is premature is because the DOJ is about to have a new administration with new policies and new people.

“The DOJ Office of Civil Rights, the very office that has been negotiating with Mr. Blanchard, was under orders during the first Trump administration not to make proposals like this one. … They are trying to lock in this deal before everything changes. What they’re trying to lock in is not a good deal for the board for a variety of legal reasons. There are so many unresolved legal issues that may eliminate the need to make any changes at all, and we believe that the board should raise those issues to the judge before thinking about agreeing to changes because that would allow the judge to decide whether this case should even continue.”

Brungard said the AG’s office has other concerns with the proposal, one being that it doesn’t actually settle the lawsuit. In fact, it is written in the proposal that the suit remains open and active for another three years, she said. It also mandates that the student population at every school be within 15 percent of the district-wide ratio of Black students and white students.

“In our experience, it’s very difficult for rural parishes with spread out communities like here in Concordia Parish to reach that percentage without bussing kids around. So, if the board agrees to this ratio and then does not meet it at even one school, there’s nothing stopping the DOJ from coming back and trying to move attendance zones again, or asking for more aggressive measures like closing schools just to try to get the numbers right,” she said.