Residents of Sparkman have filed a lawsuit against Harmony Grove School District hoping to get an injunction to stop the closure of Sparkman's High School campus.
On April 28, The Harmony Grove School Board voted 5-2 to move 40 Sparkman High School students in grades 7-12 to Harmony Grove High School.
At a special called board meeting, Harmony Grove Superintendent Al Snow said the low number of students made continued use of the Sparkman High School campus unsustainable.
"At this time, there are 108 students K-12 at the Sparkman school. Eleven of them are seniors. After they graduate, it will be 97 students... In my office I have three school choice requests to go to a school other than Sparkman; if they continue with that, it will be 94 students -- 54 students grade first through sixth and 40 at the high school. That's not sustainable," he said.
Snow stated no Kindergarteners had yet enrolled for 2023.
The lawsuit filed in Ouachita District Court states, "Plaintiffs are citizens of Arkansas who live in and near Sparkman and are interested in keeping the Sparkman School open for all grades for themselves, their children and grandchildren, their relatives and neighbors and the good of the community."
The lawsuit argues that the closure would force some students to travel up to two hours each way to school and place an undue burden on them.
It also states that since Sparkman School is a Local Education Agency offering grades K-12, state code prohibits closing part of the Sparkman school without either a unanimous vote of the School Board or an order from the State Board of Education approving such action.
"HGSD has not satisfied either legal requirement," the lawsuit states. "The law clearly prohibits HGSD's eliminating 7-12 grade education in Sparkman."
Harmony Grove School District, as of yet, has not answered the lawsuit.
Previous attempts to close the Sparkman campus by the Harmony Grove School District have been denied by the Arkansas Board of Education.
According to to documents from the Arkansas Board of Education, "On January 16, 2020, by majority vote, the Harmony Grove Board of Directors voted to close the District's Sparkman K-12 campus at the end of the 2019-2020 school year, with five members voting in favor of closure and two voting against closure."
Because it was not a unanimous vote, state law required the state board's approval for closure of the Sparkman campus.
Due to testimony and a petition from residents of Sparkman, the Board of Education ruled then that the closure was not in the best interest of Sparkman students.