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Your browser does not support the audio element. The Little Rock School District has asked to intervene as a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit that seeks to halt the state's Educational Freedom Account program. In its filings, submitted Friday in the Eastern District of Arkansas, attorneys for the school district said it has an interest in the case "because the outcome will significantly impact" its students and educators. "An outcome which allows the state to continue to invest in a separate private school system for more affluent students will inevitably work to the detriment of the constitutionally required free public school system," the district's motion to intervene states. The district urged U.S. District Judge D.P. Marshall Jr. to declare the accounts program unconstitutional and permanently bar the state from continuing the program. The plaintiffs in the case -- Gwen Faulkenberry, Special Renee Sanders, Anika Whitfield and Kimberly Crutchfield -- also filed a brief in support of the district's intervention motion, stating, "LRSD is suffering, and will continue to suffer, actual harm as a result of the Voucher Program which can be remedied by the Court granting the relief requested by LRSD and the Faulkenberry Plaintiffs." Faulkenberry, who lives in the Ozark School District, has been a columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette since 2021. The defendants are Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the Arkansas Department of Education, the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, Education Secretary Jacob Oliva, secretary of the Department of Finance and Administration Jim Hudson and each of the state Board of Education's nine members. Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin's office, which represents the defendants, has "indicated that they will oppose" the motion to intervene, according to the district's filings. Griffin's office had not yet filed any such documents on Tuesday. The arguments made in the district's motion to intervene closely align with those made by the plaintiffs. The motion asserts the accounts program violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from favoring one religion over others, and of violating the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which requires that people in similar circumstances receive the same treatment under the law. Providing "significant sums" of public money in support of private, largely sectarian schools violates the establishment clause, according to the district. The program violates the equal protection clause by discriminating against children of low-income families who can't pay the cost of attending the schools, children in rural areas who lack access to private schools and children with disabilities "or other circumstances that are not acceptable to the various private schools," the district argues. Meanwhile, Article 14 Section 1 of the Arkansas Constitution requires the state to "ever maintain a general, suitable and efficient system of free public schools." "Instead of working to 'ever maintain' a robust system of free public schools, the state has violated that obligation by creating a separate and competing system of publicly funded private religious schools and providing vouchers to encourage students to attend those schools," the district said in its motion. The filing also asserts the district is "suffering a direct injury" as a result of the program: For each student who departs the district for a private school or homeschooling, the district loses funds and other resources needed for its remaining students, according to the motion. These interests are different from those of the plaintiffs, who are "parents, teachers, citizens and taxpayers," meaning the district "cannot be fully represented or protected by" the plaintiffs, the filing states. Educational Freedom Accounts were a central component of Act 237 of 2023, an education overhaul championed by Sanders and known as the LEARNS Act. LEARNS stands for literacy, empowerment, accountability, readiness, networking and safety. The 2025-26 school year is the first in which the program is available to every Arkansas student. The funding amounts approved for the current school year are $6,864 per student and $7,627 for each former recipient of the Succeed Scholarship, according to the Education Department. At least 46,727 students have been approved to participate in the program this year. A Sept. 18 Education Department report that reflects information provided by FACTS, a firm that manages applications for the accounts program, puts the total amount of accounts program funds to be awarded for the 2025-26 school year as $326,148,043.00. The plaintiffs filed their lawsuit in federal court on June 13, and were already engaged in a separate legal challenge in Pulaski County Circuit Court that claims the program violates the Arkansas Constitution. The state Supreme Court is also slated to hear oral arguments in early November regarding three parents' request to intervene in the circuit court case. Those three parents have also filed a motion to intervene in the federal case, though Marshall has not yet issued a ruling on their request. With support from the ADG Community Journalism Project, LEARNS reporter Josh Snyder covers the impact of the law on the K-12 education system across the state, and its effect on teachers, students, parents and communities. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette maintains full editorial control over this article and all other coverage.
