Friday, September 21, 2012

TUSD Deseg Parties Request for Extension Went Unanswered (UPDATED)

Posted By on Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 9:02 AM

Today is the Sept. 21 deadline set by U.S. District Court Judge David C. Bury in the Tucson Unified School District desegregation case first proposed by court-approved deseg special master Willis Hawley. In our Aug. 2 issue ("Deseg Extention"), Weekly World Central first reported Bury's July order. A Sept. 10 deadline was set for Hawley to provide all the deseg parties with a plan to begin negotiations. A confidentiality provision prevented all parties involved from discussing an initial plan proposed by Hawley and all negotiations.

That confidentiality provision is supposed to be lifted to day, beginning a public-comment period. Any unresolved objections from all parties has to be filed with Bury by Oct. 12 and any changes to the plan by Oct. 22.

However, court documents filed on Sept. 19 show that all parties involved recently asked Bury for a seven-week extension. You can read the document here:

new_scheduling_order_request.pdf

new_scheduling_order_request2.pdf

Observers paying close attention to the case have told the Range any actual plan won't be made public until Sept. 27, because it must be translated into Spanish. They also shared that the fact that Bury hasn't respond to the extension request speaks volumes — he won't be providing any extension. Which could be the wrong move. If the language presented in one request for an extension is accurate, perhaps there's a bit of hope in the current deseg process that has not only lasted 30 years, but has had ongoing difficulties in getting all the parties to agree on what a new plan should look like and how the district will keep its promises:

The Parties, after meeting on September 9 and 10, 2012, now believe that there are substantial areas of agreement that could lead to a consent decree with respect to some or all aspects of the proposed Unitary Status Plan. It is the intent of the Parties and the Special Master that a substantially revised Unitary Status Plan will be prepared by the Special Master on or before September 28, 2012.

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