Spurlock v. Fox Day 5 Wrap-Up

Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it to court this morning, but got it on fairly good authority that I didn’t miss much.  After lunch, Mark North continued his testimony from the morning.  He briefly finished his direct examination under Plaintiffs’ Attorney Woods on the subject of the Task Force and its use of legal opinions.

Note: David Fox and Steve Glover were also in attendance today.

In a nutshell, North testified that the task force was not provided a legal opinion about the plan they were creating.  Instead, he said, the Board (himself especially), had spent much time contemplating and analyzing the Louisville/Seattle Supreme Court decision(s).  A summary of the decision created by the Legal Defense Fund was included in the materials that was given the task force, but the rezoning plan itself was never reviewed for legality or possible constitutional problems.

Cross examination was where Mr. North was “let off the chain,” so to speak, and where he spent about two hours relating stories to the judge and assembled lawyers and spectators, often with very little questioning from Mr. Klein.  Cross examination (to be fair, Mr. North is a named defendant and is a defense witness, so the cross examination was really much more like a typical direct examination) started with some questions about Mr. North’s history, but focusing especially on how he got involved in running for School Board.

Mr. North, in relating the circumstances, took repeated care to remind the court that he was in no way interested in the position, having had experience with electoral politics before.  But, he said, Pam Garrett, who was retiring from the Board Member slot which he was being asked to fill, repeatedly entreated Mr. North, saying that he was the only person she could think of that would do a good job, that it was his duty, and that the district needed him.  Nevertheless, according to Mr. North, he refused.  A short time later, said North, he was notified at his office that he had a call waiting from Mayor Purcell.  On this phone call, North says he was again prevailed upon to take up Mrs. Garrett’s soon to be vacant School Board position.  In fact, the Mayor himself came to see Mr. North to persuade him to take the position.  After many more attempts at persuasion (words to the effect of “we need you” and “can’t live without you,” according to Mr. North’s testimony), he, in his words, “caved” in March of 2007.  He submitted his name to the Council to take over Mrs. Garrett’s position, was unanimously appointed, and then ran unopposed a few months later in the next election.

Mr. Klein very specifically asked about contributors to Mr. North’s campaign, to which Mr. North replied,

“I guess I did [get contributions], but I don’t remember raising much money and I don’t remember spending much money.”

The same line of questioning, designed no doubt to elicit the fact that Mr. North was not placed on the School Board by some nefarious, racist, pro-rezoning cabal, led to a conversation about Mr. North’s connection to SuccessPAC, which it itself an arm of the Nashville Chamber of Commerce.  According to Mr. North, when he met with the Chamber folks, rezoning was not a specific topic of interest; rather, general issues about the state of Metro schools, status and consequences under NCLB, and other general questions were all that he remembers from the meeting.

Mr. North also talked about his first Board meeting, the infamous school uniforms meeting, in 2007.  According to Mr. North,

“It was a classic example of being sworn in one day, sworn at the next, no matter what my vote was going to be.”

Asked whether “rezoning was on your radar,” when just beginning at the Board, Mr. North replied, “I don’t think so.”

From there, the Defense moved on to discussing school utilization issues, Dr. Garcia’s rezoning plan, and Dr. Garcia in general.  Mr. North affirmed that school utilization issues (under-enrollment and overcrowding) were ever-present issues before the School Board.  Along with the repeated failures under NCLB (“It was in the process of spiraling down,” according to Mr. North), these issues were the ones on which the School Board focused.  Describing Dr. Garcia, Mr. North said,

“It became apparent to me that the . . . central office was compartmentalized . . . . I think there really was a fear factor . . . that Dr. Garcia . . . sort of ruled with an iron fist . . . .  There was frustration on my part that I had the feeling there was something we weren’t being told.  I had a feeling that we weren’t getting the whole picture.”

The Defense spent a little time discussing how Dr. Garcia was evaluated, and then moved on to discuss the circumstances of his leaving.  According to Mr. North it was an

“[A]greed upon parting of the ways.”

though

“I thought there was cause . . . I was torn.”

In the end, Mr. North testified that “it was a difficult decision” because he believed that there might have been cause to fire Dr. Garcia under Tennessee law (and thus pay him no severance).  He was “torn” between trying to fire Dr. Garcia for cause and paying the severance/accepting Dr. Garcia’s resignation.  In the end, he voted to accept the resignation and pay the severance because “it was time to move on . . . for peace.”

Moving slightly back in time, Mr. Klein then began a line of questioning about Dr. Garcia’s rezoning proposal and the politics of how it played out.  Mr. North testified that the proposal included no choice option, and was apparently geared more towards playing politics than actually putting a coherent plan into place.  He described one instance in which he had submitted a list of questions to Dr. Garcia about his district (none of his schools were scheduled to be touched, but were under “further study”).  According to Mr. North, at this meeting Dr. Garcia failed to answer any of the questions Mr. North had submitted, but instead asked whether closing Gateway Elementary School, in Mr. North’s district, would “hurt him politically.”  Mr. North replied that it would.  Dr. Garcia then said, according to Mr. North, “Will it help you if we can keep it open?”  Mr. North replied that it would, but that he still wanted answers to the questions he had submitted.  In response, testified Mr. North, all he got was an odd facial expression (described by Judge Nixon as a “c’est la vie” expression).  According to Mr. North,

“I didn’t understand.  Later I realized he was counting votes – seeing if he kept Gateway open I would vote for his plan.”

As another part of his “further study,” Mr. North testified that he read the Louisville/Seattle decision “very carefully,” even going so far as to dig out his constitutional law textbook from law school and re-read pertinent cases.  He also went on a radio show hosted by Rev. Fuzz with School Board Member Ed Kindall, attended public meetings, and sent out letters to parents, principals, and teachers.  Most critically, Mr. North testified that he met with Dr. Claire Smrekar about her and Ellen Goldring’s study of Nashville schools.  Over a one-hour meeting, Mr. North said, Dr. Smrekar was critical of the Lousville/Seattle decision, worried that it would lead to resegregation.  Mr. North specifically referred to the Smrekar/Goldring article they discussed, saying,

“It was . . . She talked about her finding of the differences [in] schools that are absolutely impoverished. . . . The one interesting thing in her study that seemed to address that . . . is that it doesn’t take a large percentage or a lot of money (wealthy people in the school), to combat that impact.”

This bit of testimony became more pertinent towards the end of the day when Mr. North testified that he thought the Task Force’s rezoning proposal was much in line with what the Smrekar/Goldring article recommended (“I think they’re [the Smrekar/Goldring conclusions] relatively consistent with the findings of the task force.”).  As he put it, the task force focused on the Pearl-Cohn cluster in implementing the ideas of Smrekar and Goldring and, as a solution, rezoned the “largely affluent” sections of Germantown and Downtown into the Pearl-Cohn cluster, not as noncontiguous school zones or with choice, but simply as a matter of course.  Mr. North was clearly setting this up as a “little bit of money/middle class will fix it” approach the he took out of the Smrekar/Goldring article.

The only other notable parts of Mr. North’s afternoon testimony was an extended parable about his experience riding the school bus with children who were bused from North Nashville to the Hillwood cluster, and how his experience talking with a little girl on this bus shaped his thinking about busing.  According to Mr. North, he concluded that “Harpeth Valley was a better school with the [bused in] students . . . from North Nashville . . . than without them” and that riding the bus “wasn’t torture.”  However, he said, it was clear that for some students, riding the bus was a good thing (Judge Nixon asked him about camaraderie on the bus and Mr. North replied that there was “some”), but for others, it was not.  It was difficult to say which were which, he said.  This story, though somewhat long, had a clear point: The Board has no problem with busing and admits that its probably good for some students.  However, it’s not good, from the Board’s (i.e. Mark North’s) perspective, for all, so the only way to solve the problem is with choice.  According to Mr. North, this bus-riding experience “raised questions” for him.

Lastly, Mr. North also testified about the materials that the Task Force was given.  Recall that the Plaintiffs have made a big point about how the Task Force failed to consider much relevant material (including the Smrekar/Goldring information); this testimony was meant to rebut this charge.  Mr. North described the packets the Task Force was given, including demographic and enrollment data and trends, the settlement as a part of Nashville moving to unitary status in 1998, the LDF summary of the Louisville/Seattle decision, and many other things, including at least one Smrekar/Goldring article.

At this point, cross examination of Mr. North was halted by the judge, to be resumed on Thursday, and the court was adjourned.

See also: Jeff Woods’ coverage of today; The Tennessean’s (Clay Carey) coverage of today.