HALIFAX, NC – Today, as children in Halifax County begin a new school year, the Coalition for Education and Economic Security (CEES), the Halifax County Branch of the NAACP, and three parents and guardians of children attending public schools in Halifax County filed suit against the Halifax County Board of Commissioners to vindicate the North Carolina constitutional right of Halifax County’s schoolchildren to the opportunity for a quality basic education.
Under North Carolina’s state constitution, and as affirmed by the North Carolina Supreme Court in the Leandro cases, the board is required to provide an educational system that ensures the opportunity for a sound basic education to every child in Halifax County. Instead it maintains and funds an inefficient three-district system that divides children into “good” and “bad” school districts along racial lines, and creates an insurmountable obstacle to academic achievement and opportunity required by the North Carolina Constitution.
During a press conference on August 25th, speakers will addressed this constitutional violation resulting from the board’s deliberate preservation of an unsustainable, three-district system serving a declining population of less than 7,000 students manifested in at-risk students’ blocked access to educational facilities, high quality teachers and administrators, educational and learning materials, and curricular and extra-curricular opportunities.