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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA

SOUTHERN DIVISION

LINDA STOUT, **

Plaintiff, ** Case No. CV-65-0396-MHH-S

v. ** 10:00 a.m.*

JEFFERSON COUNTY *BOARD OF EDUCATION, * Birmingham, Alabama

*Defendant. * November 12, 2014

**********************************

TRANSCRIPT OF TELEPHONIC CONFERENCEBEFORE THE HONORABLE MADELINE HUGHES HAIKALA

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Court Reporter: Chanetta L. Sinkfield, CCR, RMRUnited States Courthouse1729 Fifth Avenue NorthBirmingham, AL 35203

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APPEARANCES

FOR THE PLAINTIFF: MONIQUE LIN-LUSE, ESQ.NAACP LEGAL DEFENSEAND EDUCATIONAL FUND INC.40 Rector Street 5th FloorNew York, NY 10006

THOMAS ANDREW FALKINBURG, ESQ.UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE950 Pennsylvania Avenue NWWashington, DC 20004

FOR THE DEFENDANT: WHIT COLVIN, ESQ.BISHOP COLVIN JOHNSON & KENT1910 1st Avenue NorthBirmingham, AL 35203

DONALD B. SWEENEY, JR., ESQ.BRADLEY ARANT BOULT CUMMINGS LLPONE FEDERAL PLACE1819 Fifth Avenue North,Birmingham, AL 35203

Court Reporter: Chanetta L. Sinkfield, CCR, RMRUnited States Courthouse1729 Fifth Avenue NorthBirmingham, Alabama 35203

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P R O C E E D I N G S

THE COURT: Good morning.

ALL COUNSEL: Good morning.

THE COURT: We are here in Case No. 65-396. This

case is Stout versus Jefferson County Board of Education, and

we are here for a telephone status conference in the case.

Let me begin, please -- I have a court reporter

here -- let me begin by having everyone identify themselves,

please, for the record.

MR. COLVIN: Whit Colvin here for the Jefferson

County School Board.

THE COURT: Next.

MR. FALKINBURG: Thomas Falkinburg, United States

Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

THE COURT: Thank you. Next.

MR. SWEENEY: Good morning, Judge, Donald Sweeney,

and I represent several school systems that are subject to the

Stout order.

THE COURT: Who else do we have?

MR. COLVIN: Your Honor, I don't think Monique has

called in yet.

THE COURT: Okay.

MR. COLVIN: But I spoke with one of her colleagues

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this morning, so I think she was in Tennessee.

THE COURT: Great.

MR. COLVIN: This is Whit Colvin, by the way. I

just remembered on a conference call, we need to identify.

THE COURT: Yes, sir. Thank you.

Are we anticipating anyone else participating in the

phone conference other than Ms. Lin-Luse?

MR. FALKINBURG: I don't believe anyone else is here

at the Department of Justice, Judge. Just myself this

morning.

THE COURT: Okay. Thank you. We're going to try to

call Ms. Lin-Luse and see if we can get her to call in and see

if she is having any trouble calling in.

(Pause in the proceedings.)

[Monique Lin-Luse is joining the meeting.]

THE COURT: Good morning, Ms. Lin-Luse.

MS. LIN-LUSE: Good morning. Sorry for my

tardiness. I had some trouble with the cell phone system.

Good morning to everyone.

THE COURT: Good morning, welcome.

All right. Well, Ms. Lin-Luse, I have gone around the

room -- this is Judge Haikala. I have gone around the

constructive room on our telephone conference, and we have Mr.

Colvin, Mr. Falkinburg, and Mr. Sweeney on the line, as well.

The Court -- I asked you all to participate in this

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telephone conference. As you know, I am new to the case, and

it's always interesting to step into a 50-year-old case and

try to get up to speed. So, sometimes one of the best ways to

do that is actually to have a conversation with the attorneys

in the case. I have been reading through the pleadings and

some of the appellate decisions in the case trying to

familiarize myself with it.

Maybe the best place to start right now is for you all

to give me a snapshot of where the case stands from your

perspective.

Ms. Lin-Luse, I believe you are fairly new to the case

as well. Correct?

MS. LIN-LUSE: Yes, I am. I am very new to the

case.

THE COURT: Mr. Falkinburg, how long have you been

involved in the case?

MR. FALKINBURG: I was assigned back in 2011 when

the prior attorney here at the Department of Justice took a

transfer to the Department of Education. So I have been

involved for, say, about three years or so and have monitored

the reports since then.

THE COURT: Okay. Mr. Colvin, how long have you

been representing the Board in this matter?

MR. COLVIN: Your Honor, I have been, I think, since

about long enough that -- the specific date escapes me.

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THE COURT: (Laughter.)

MR. COLVIN: For at least the last ten years. I've

really became involved -- and since Your Honor has looked back

at the docket -- when we had sort of a complete redo of the

transfer process back in what, I believe, was 2001. About

then. So close to 15 years.

THE COURT: Okay.

MR. COLVIN: I was all of probably 30 years old when

I started working on this case.

THE COURT: All right. Mr. Sweeney?

MR. SWEENEY: I wish you wouldn't ask. I have sat

in --

THE COURT: More than ten years; is that fair?

MR. SWEENEY: That's fair. I sat in Judge Pointer's

office when some of these orders were issued.

THE COURT: All right. Well, then, Mr. Sweeney,

since you have the best historical knowledge of the case, why

don't you, for the benefit of all of us, give us a little bit

of background, please, and then we can get into more concrete

details about where the case stands right now.

MR. SWEENEY: Let me respectfully defer to Whit as

this relates to Jefferson County, Judge, because I represent

splinter systems that have an entirely different perspective

and involvement. So if you would accept that transfer for the

relevant background on the Jefferson County aspect, I think

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the dialogue would go better.

THE COURT: All right. Then we'll do it that way.

Mr. Colvin.

MR. COLVIN: Your Honor, do you want me to start

from the beginning? I actually wasn't born when this case was

initiated, but really my knowledge of the case starts in about

2000. Of course, I did go back and have some knowledge that

others have, including Mr. Sweeney, have imparted to me over

the years about the case. But you know, the sort of major

order in the case was the 1971 order. And Judge Pointer for a

number of years took -- he really had a hands-on approach to

the case. And as you'll see from reviewing the docket, in

fact, for a number of years, attorneys didn't necessarily even

submit things to Judge Pointer. We had a number of

initiatives over the years from the Jefferson County School

Board which were handled without the benefit of lawyers. And

many times it would just be a letter to the judge. And the

judge was so familiar with the case that he would just write,

you know, grant it or deny it on the letter and put it in the

record.

The case like many of these actions just kind of -- I

mean, it kind of proceeded along those lines for many, many,

many years. Tens of years. And there was not much action.

After Judge Pointer left the bench, it was transferred to

Judge Johnson, and I think she found herself in a similar

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position that you're in where she assumed control and

responsibility over this case. There were volumes and volumes

of paper, and there was no electronic docket at all at the

time. And she began asking questions about transfers in

particular.

At the time the Jefferson County Board sort of let the

transfer process get away from them, there was no one minding

the store, and we had three or 4,000 transfers per year. They

were not following their guidelines like they should have, and

Judge Johnson very quickly -- it became apparent that we were

all going to have to get a handle on that and did so. And so

that's when my involvement in the case really started. Since

that time, we have -- you know, there have been a number of

initiatives, small zone line changes. We have consolidated

some schools. There's been a major construction initiative by

virtue of the billion-dollar bond issue here in Jefferson

County. The Jefferson County Board built over 400 million

dollars worth of schools. That plan of course was approved by

the Court.

During that time when Judge Johnson was overseeing the

case, and I have been involved, we have seen two school

systems leave the Jefferson County Board of Education and

operate their own city systems, the Trussville and Leeds

systems. So those have required modifications to the process,

as well. We have seen the implementation of some technical

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academies, and some specialized academies in the Shades Valley

area, and international baccalaureate schools, which were

permitted to operate without the use of racial criteria at

all; sort of independent of all the other requirements of the

case. And we have also seen a comprehensive review of the

district. That started with the United States, oh gosh, five,

six, seven, eight years ago. They looked at a number of the

Green factors -- and kind of trying to narrow things down to

see where we were in terms of unitary status where we still

had some work to do in what might be right for presentation to

the Court.

And when Judge Johnson took senior status, that's kind

of where we were. Each time I talked with her about the case,

she would ask, okay, where are we; when are you going to bring

me a motion? You know, I am ready to begin whittling away at

the case. And then the case -- you know, she took senior

status, and so the case stayed a little dormant.

In the meantime, I had presented -- the United States

and I have swapped a good bit of information over the last,

what, Tom, two years, one year? And so, you know, we're kind

of at the point, I think, where we are looking at some

additional review.

In addition, Monique is planning on being here the

first week of December. She is obviously new to the case and

needs to come to the district. So that's on the schedule, as

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well.

Was that too comprehensive or not enough?

THE COURT: That was perfect. Thank you.

Having that as our working basis, let me turn to you,

Mr. Falkinburg. Is there anything that you would like to add?

MR. FALKINBURG: I could just say from my experience

with the case, and I just checked my notes on March of 2011 --

so for the last three years, initially, my involvement was on

the transfers that were permitted under the No Child Left

Behind Act, and I remember working with the school district on

getting those pleadings submitted. Usually, right before the

school year was a controlled choice process, and there were a

certain number of schools that students were eligible to

transfer to based on the test scores. Other than that, I

agree with Mr. Colvin.

I recall last year we had a discussion, telephone

conversation about moving this case forward and probably

getting some of the Green factors declared unitary. In

particular, Mr. Colvin mentioned the facilities review and the

bond issue. The county did have a good deal of money. And

the United States government, a few years ago had reviewed --

had conducted their own analysis of facilities that needed

upgrading. And of course, we would want to get some more

information and certainly do an onsite visit. But if the bond

issue has corrected the deficiencies that were noted in the

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past, I think that's certainly an area where the parties can

discuss moving forward.

THE COURT: Okay. As I understand it, there has not

been a declaration of unitary status as to any Green factors

yet in this case; is that right?

MR. COLVIN: That's correct, Your Honor.

THE COURT: Mr. Sweeney, is there anything that you

would like to add from the perspective of the systems that you

represent?

MR. SWEENEY: Only that we have had periodic calls

from the Justice Department, indicating that they would like

to begin the process to address unitary status. But for

various reasons over the last ten years, that has not taken

place. The Justice Department has just had other matters, and

then they may have been because of the attention they had to

give to Trussville and Leeds, as those systems changed the

demographics of Jefferson County.

But at any rate, there has been no review or any

meaningful discussions concerning unitary status with regard

to Hoover, Homewood, Trussville, or Leeds, which are systems I

represent that are still under Stout.

THE COURT: Okay. I know that a couple of those

systems, while they're still reporting in the Stout case, I

believe they've been severed. For instance, Judge Hopkins is

overseeing a couple of those cases.

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MR. SWEENEY: Yes, ma'am.

THE COURT: Hoover certainly is still before the

Court in the Stout matter.

Let me turn to you, Ms. Lin-Luse. I am also presiding

over the public school desegregation case that is up in

Huntsville, and one of the issue we had to address in that

case was the standing of the named plaintiff. I know looking

through the pleadings in this case that I believe it was Judge

Lynne, maybe initially, or perhaps it was later Judge Pointer,

who recognized that within a short period of time, Ms. Stout

no longer was a student in the Jefferson County school system.

Nevertheless, the Court said that the case could go forward in

Ms. Stout's name.

Of course, 50 years down the road, I think it's safe

to say that there's no chance that she is still in the

Jefferson County school system.

So, any thoughts on standing and whether the NAACP is

going to remain involved in the case on behalf of a named

plaintiff?

MS. LIN-LUSE: Yes, so we at LDS, Legal Defense

Fund, have been in many of the conversations that were just

discussed by Mr. Falkinburg with regard to Jefferson County;

that LDS have been involved in those discussions. We also

have been in contact, and had community contact, and within

the Jefferson County area, and have been in touch with the

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meetings with them on a variety of issues. That's sort of

been the sounding board for different matters that have come

before the Court or with regard to this case.

We could be in a position to identify additionally

named plaintiffs for substitute, if that's something that the

Court would like, but we definitely have been having those

ongoing conversations, which had not gone through the formal

process of identifying or substituting named plaintiffs in the

case.

In addition, with Hoover, we also have been -- along

with the DOJ with regard to the Hoover case -- there were some

issues around transportation in the past year, and LDS has

been actively involved in those discussions, the discovery,

and various meetings with Board counsel, DOJ, and LDS. So we

definitely have been involved. To your standing question,

that's something that we can pursue in a formal matter.

THE COURT: Okay. Here is what I think I would like

to do, I would like to have the opportunity to meet with all

of you in person, and I want to schedule that in a way that it

is most convenient for you all, because I know that means

having Ms. Lin-Luse come from New York and having Mr.

Falkinburg come from D.C.

What I would like for you all to do is to submit a

joint written report to the Court, going through each of the

Green factors and giving me sort of a summary of where you all

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believe the case stands with respect to each Green factor.

Essentially, ranking them and telling me which ones you think

are closest to being in a position in which the Court can

examine that factor for a declaration of unitary status, and

letting us know which ones you think are going to require more

work by the parties to get those factors in a position for a

declaration.

For instance, it may be that facilities is one that's

close. It may be transportation is close. Looking at some of

the reports on faculty, my guess is that that may be one that

still needs a little more attention.

I would like to sit down with you all and have a good

discussion about process and how we do help the case proceed

forward. I believe, Mr. Colvin, you said that you all have

had conversations with Ms. Lin-Luse about coming down to

Birmingham in December. I would be happy to work around that

date. Or if you all feel you need a little more time, we

could set something up in a January, if that would suit your

schedules better.

MS. LIN-LUSE: Just to clarify, is the thinking that

we would have the joint report would also be -- we would

discuss that at the in-person meeting?

THE COURT: Yes. I would like to have the report a

few days before the meeting so that I can review it and have a

sense of what you all are thinking. Then I think we can have

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a more robust discussion if we have that report first.

MR. SWEENEY: Judge, other than Jefferson County and

Hoover, you have which other cases under the Stout umbrella?

THE COURT: I believe that's it, Mr. Sweeney.

MR. SWEENEY: That was my recollection. I wonder if

it would make sense when Monica [sic] comes to Jefferson

County to review facilities, if the parties couldn't meet,

just the parties at that time. That would give her and Tom an

opportunity to look at the facilities of Jefferson County.

But then, we could discuss all of the issues and submit a

report for a meeting with you in January.

THE COURT: I think that sounds like a logical

suggestion. How does that sounds to everyone else?

MR. FALKINBURG: Yes, Judge, I am looking at my

calendar, and I am certainly free to come down to Birmingham

in December; the first part of that. But as you are probably

aware, obviously, getting official pleadings, reports through

the review process here at the DOJ takes a little time. So I

think that January date sounds more reasonable. So I think

that sounds like a very good process.

THE COURT: All right. Mr. Colvin?

MR. COLVIN: It's great with me, Your Honor. You

know, I guess it's of course it's easier for me to get to the

court. So whenever you would like the material submitted or

the report submitted, that would be great. It will -- because

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Jefferson County in particular is so big, I mean, with over 60

schools and 35,000 kids -- and knowing that at least Monique

and -- Tom, I don't think you have ever been down here.

MR. FALKINBURG: I have not, no.

MR. COLVIN: So given that -- it's a little

intuitive to me just because I have lived with it so long, but

it will take a little time to get up to speed and really

narrow down and kind of focus on what issues are more ripe for

unitary status consideration and the ones that aren't, I

think. So yeah, that extra time would be great.

THE COURT: Okay. I think you all probably can use

that time to make sure that you have got all of your reporting

up-to-date.

MR. COLVIN: Yes, ma'am.

THE COURT: That certainly is one of the tools

that's very helpful to the Court in making a Green factor

analysis. So that information will be beneficial to all of

us.

MR. FALKINBURG: Judge, Mr. Colvin brings up a good

point about the size of the district. Since this is a large,

essentially metropolitan district, in many cases my experience

has been the Department of Justice needs to retain expert

consultants to help analyze some of the factors, which are

different from some of the smaller school districts that we

deal with where potentially just the attorney himself or

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herself can review a lot of the data, because this is such a

massive district.

THE COURT: Right.

MR. SWEENEY: Judge, if I could just throw one more

variable that's kind of on the margin at this point.

Gardendale is in the process of forming a splinter school

system. There are significant issues relating to that effort

between Gardendale and Jefferson County, and those aren't

likely to be decided. What do you think, not 'til 2015,

probably?

MR. COLVIN: I will agree with that.

MR. SWEENEY: We're working on various issues on

that. I just mentioned that, Your Honor, that the dynamics

may change somewhat this spring with regard to a petition that

Gardendale would have to submit to you to show that there's no

adverse impact.

With regard to Hoover, the Justice Department should

be a little bit ahead of the curb from what I said earlier

because we have exchanged lots and lots of information in the

last three months, because of transportation issues and

rezoning issues. But they haven't focused on the Green

factors as such. It's just been an exchange of demographic

information and zoning.

THE COURT: Okay.

MS. LIN-LUSE: We would be retaining an expert, as

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well as given that it is a metropolitan, more urban school

district than the school -- both of them are two or three

hours apart; that I am actually wondering if we could look a

little further out. That should give us enough time to be

able to go and get -- if not all of the schools -- a very

large representation of the schools, which I think may take

more than just the initial week in December that I set aside

to go and do the site visit. So I don't know if the Court

would be amenable to considering February as an option.

THE COURT: Okay. That's fine. We'll set a date in

late January for you all to submit the joint report to the

Court, and then we will set a status conference in February

for us to get together. Once I have your report and I have

had more time to go through some of the annual reports that

you have submitted to the Court, one of the things that we can

plan to talk about in February is whether or not the Court

feels like it will need to have the assistance of a special

master to review all of the information that the Court will

need to consider in evaluating the Green factors. I think

I'll have a better sense of that once I get your joint report,

and I have had more time to review the annual reports.

I am in the same boat you all are because of the size

of the system. It may be that I will want to appoint a

special master. So you all be giving that some thought, too,

and it's something that we can add to our discussion when we

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meet in February.

Ms. Lin-Luse, if you will, please, be giving some

thought to identifying some substitute plaintiffs. I think

that's probably the best way to move forward because

ultimately, we're going to have to set a hearing in this

matter on the Green factors, and I think it would be to

everyone's benefit to have some named plaintiffs who have an

active interest in the issues.

MS. LIN-LUSE: Okay.

MR. FALKINBURG: Could I get exact dates for that

visit in December, if they're available?

MR. COLVIN: Sure, Tom. I think we were talking

about I -- I can send those -- would you rather me send those

to you?

MR. FALKINBURG: Yes, that's fine. Just so I know

what days to schedule. That's fine. Sure.

MR. COLVIN: I will forward you in on the

correspondence between Monique and I.

MR. SWEENEY: Would you let me know, as well, and

then I will coordinate when they might like to meet with us.

MR. COLVIN: Sure.

Your Honor, Donald and I will defer to you on this.

But historically with Judge Johnson, while Hoover and

Jefferson County are part of the same case style and case

number, they sort of proceeded on separate tracks. Would you

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agree with that, Donald?

MR. SWEENEY: Yes. Judge, when Hoover formed in

1988, the suggestion of formation was filed, but there was

never an order from the Court dictating what the Court

expected on an annual basis, so that when you look at the

record, you will not find much of a trail from 1988 forward on

the Hoover case.

MR. COLVIN: Right. But historically, when things

have come up with Hoover's conversations, I have not

necessarily been a part of -- and Donald, the same would be

true with Jefferson County.

MR. SWEENEY: That's why I deferred to your

expertise. I think wisely.

MR. COLVIN: I don't know about expertise,

but...you're kind.

THE COURT: Well, we will include that in the

discussion in February. It may be that the Court will decide

to have separate tracks for Jefferson County and for Hoover,

but I'll be in a better position to make a call on that,

again, once I get a joint report from the parties.

If it makes sense to you all in that report to

distinguish between Jefferson County and Hoover, please feel

free to do that. Present the information, please, in the way

that you think is going to help us best organize and conduct a

discussion about how to move the case forward procedurally.

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MR. SWEENEY: Just from the peanut gallery on that,

I don't think there has been much overlap between the two

cases at all, that is, between Hoover and Jefferson County.

Nor do I know of any current issues that would require an

overlap of the two systems. So the data respecting the two

systems. Would that be -- so it may be -- we would certainly

defer to whatever makes a judicial -- best fit judicial

economy. But they seem to be from my perception entirely

different cases.

MR. FALKINBURG: Judge, from the Department of

Justice's perspective, currently, I am not assigned to that

Hoover case either. I don't have any background in that one.

THE COURT: Mr. Falkinburg, do you know who is

responsible for that case from you --

MR. FALKINBURG: Natane Singleton has been our

primary contact.

THE COURT: Okay. Well, she will need to be

involved in these meetings, then, and in the February

conference that we'll have.

Mr. Sweeney, I understand you are taking the position

that the Hoover report is not subject to the Court's reporting

requirements; is that correct?

MR. SWEENEY: I think we should be, Judge. That was

not part of any order from the Court. But in discussions with

the Justice Department as a result of rezoning and so forth,

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we both believe that it was appropriate for Hoover to be

submitting annual information to you. We have submitted

information to the Court concerning rezoning, but only in the

last week have we submitted an annual report, and that was

collaborative result of -- with the Justice Department that

you did in fact need that information.

THE COURT: Well, I am going to issue an order so

that it will be of record that the Hoover system does need to

comply with the reporting requirements under the Singleton

order.

How far back, Mr. Sweeney, do you think the Hoover

system can go and submit reports to the Court?

MR. SWEENEY: I'll just have to ask. They had

enormous trouble transferring the data for this year to the

Justice Department because of formatting problems. I'll find

out, Your Honor. I just don't know.

THE COURT: I am going to, in the order, I am going

to require the Hoover system to provide reports for the past

five years. If you run into difficulty gathering the

information, creating the reports, and supplying them to the

Court, you'll just need to file a motion for relief and

explain to the Court why you have difficulty assembling those

reports. Again, I don't do that as a punitive matter, I do it

because it's really necessary for the Court to have that

information to be able to make a comprehensive review on Green

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factors. If I don't have that, then, I am going to have to

put you all on a reporting regimen for X number of years

before we can even really start the Green factor review.

MR. SWEENEY: My response to that is I agree that

you would need that historical perspective, and I hope we

won't have difficulty providing most of the information to

you. I hope that just because of the environment in Hoover

when you issue the order, it will reflect that we have

submitted an annual report this year, so that it doesn't

appear that we have been in contempt or derelict in some

fashion.

THE COURT: Okay. We'll get that order out within

the next couple of days. Is there anything else that you all

would like to discuss while we have everyone on the telephone

this morning?

MR. SWEENEY: I just think this has been a very

constructive dialogue, and thank you for setting this up.

MR. COLVIN: We're anxious to get back started on

the case. It's been floundering a bit for the last year or so

since Judge Johnson decided to enjoy her time.

THE COURT: Her well-earned senior status.

Absolutely.

MS. LIN-LUSE: I just wanted for clarification, on

the report, just the idea it would be a joint report from all

four parties?

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THE COURT: Yes, ma'am.

MS. LIN-LUSE: Okay.

THE COURT: If there are things that you do not

agree about, you can either -- for each Green factor, for

example, let's take facilities, you can start with a joint

statement of what you all have been able to agree upon, and

then if each of the parties has something that they want to

identify for the Court, that they want the Court to consider,

but the other parties haven't agreed to that, then give me

some bullet points or some numbered paragraphs under the joint

statement, and just identify which party is pointing out the

particular information to the Court. Again, that will just

help me be better informed when we sit down together for a

conversation.

MS. LIN-LUSE: Just to clarify the comprehensiveness

of this report, are you envisioning like a 500-page report, or

like a 40 or like a 13? How great in detail do you want --

particularly things around like facilities and those sort of

things or general or very, very specifically, I guess?

THE COURT: I want the helicopter view for this

report, please. We will probably reach the point where we

need to get down on ground level and get into more specific

details. It may be that through the annual reports that have

been supplied to the Court, we will already have a lot of the

detailed information that the Court needs. You all, through

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your conversations with one another and through information,

it sounds like you are going to try to corral with the help of

experts, we will be able to see if there are other areas that

need exploration before we can do a motion for unitary status

on any one of the Green factors.

So this really right now is about figuring out where

we are so that we know what we need to do to go forward and

try to move the case toward a declaration of unitary status

for all Green factors. We'll figure out a time line, we will

figure out procedure, whether there's any discovery that needs

to be done. It sounds like you all are handling a lot of that

cooperatively. First of all, I want to thank you for that. I

think it's terrific that you are working so well together.

We'll just talk about whether you all need any formal

discovery and then start trying to map out for each of the

Green factors what the timeline is for moving each factor

toward a declaration of unitary status.

MR. SWEENEY: Judge, moving the conference with you

to February has the added benefit of addressing another

variable. We have submitted tentative rezoning plans to the

Justice Department for review with an awful lot of data, but

that was just submitted to them, I think, in the last three

weeks, we have -- I say tentative because we want their input

before we adopt anything formally and to position ourselves to

petition the Court to review.

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The Justice Department has to look at all of this data

before they can give us their sense of the propriety of what's

being proposed. Then we have the additional complication of

the announcement that our superintendent is leaving January 1,

Andy Craig, and that will necessitate an appointment of a new

superintendent before any final plans can either be submitted

to the Court or to the Justice Department.

I hope we can unravel all of that. But having a

February joint meeting with you makes that much more likely to

unravel some of those loose ends.

THE COURT: Okay. Well, that's fine, and if there

isn't resolution on some of those issues, that shouldn't

impede a discussion about just trying to get a sense of what

we need to do for each of the Green factors to move the case

forward both with respect to Jefferson County and Hoover. So,

I think we're in good shape to --

MR. SWEENEY: And that may be, Judge, another reason

to submit the two cases because those variables concerning

Hoover do not have implications that I know of with Jefferson

County.

THE COURT: Okay. Well, that is information that

you all can provide in the joint report to the Court, and I'll

be better prepared after I review your report to discuss those

issues with you at our meeting.

MR. COLVIN: Your Honor, one more thing -- and this

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is more of a tip than anything else -- but the Jefferson

County Board in its joint transfer report that was submitted

in November of 2001, included -- there are maps, comprehensive

maps of the entire school district and of each different

attendance zone in the school district. So it's sort of a

one-stop shop, a place where you can look, and at least

graphically familiarize yourself with the district and in kind

of the way things flow.

THE COURT: Okay.

MR. COLVIN: Just so you know, there's so much in

the record that -- that was submitted in -- at that time, I

don't think we were on our electronic docket, I think it was

paper. And Judge Johnson, I believe, asked that those be

submitted in paper. And you may even have big maps. But if

it would be helpful as you look through that to get larger

maps or different maps generated from the school board, then

we can certainly do that. That applies for you, Monique, and

Tom, too. But you guys should have it, I think, already.

THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Colvin. That's very

helpful.

Let me make sure you -- although my clerk who is

working on this case is Katie Gibson -- as we go along, if you

all have questions or if there are items like that, things in

the record that you want to make sure the Court has reviewed

before we all meet, please feel comfortable sending a joint

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e-mail to Katie letting her know about any questions you have.

If you feel like we need to have a quick telephone

conversation after you all meet in December, any of those

sorts of little housekeeping things that you would like for us

to be part of the work that you are doing, just reach out to

Katie, please, and we will be happy to set up a telephone

conference with you. Or Katie can just come to me and we can

discuss whatever the issue is, and she can get back to you

all. We want to be as helpful to you through this process as

we can be.

MR. SWEENEY: Thank you, Your Honor.

MR. COLVIN: Thank you, Your Honor.

MS. LIN-LUSE: Thank you, Your Honor.

THE COURT: Well, thank you very much for your time

this morning, I appreciate it, and we look forward to working

with you all on this case.

ALL COUNSEL: Thank you.

THE COURT: Take care. Bye.