Returning schools to the control of local authorities at the earliest practicable date is essential to restore their true accountability in our governmental system.

On October 21, 1994 the Court denied the motion to terminate court jurisdiction, but did allow for the filing of a motion for reconsideration within ten days.
 

The next three days I reflected upon the denial of this 1994 motion to terminate jurisdiction, following the losses of my earlier motions in 1981 and 1992. In ten days this order would practically end my ability to show good cause before the trial court for ending the case. This would leave an uphill appellate battle by our citizen group, led by a solo pro bono attorney, versus deep-pockets opponents who strongly felt it necessary that the court retain jurisdiction to ensure maximum state integration funds for the District's integration program.

How ironic it seemed to me that this case should still be pending in state court when the seminal Crawford case had ended in 1981. It had set the precedent for the allegations of these Plaintiffs as well as for the Bustop intervention in that case, and was persuasive in my gaining entry of Groundswell in this case. Bustop's attorneys had long ago completed their representation, yet the end of mine was not in sight.

My thoughts then turned to the deterioration of my knees to the extent I could hardly walk, and then only with a cane, in great pain. My son Jim had made an appointment with doctors in Los Angeles for X-rays and prognosis on Monday, October 24 and I phoned him to cancel my planned trip there with my son Bob to figure out what to do.

On Monday I decided my best chance was to try to have the motion reconsidered, mainly because of a very recent development in a Kansas City desegregation case after all my papers had been filed, appropriately called to the court's attention by the Board's attorney. My main basis for a timely filed Motion for Reconsideration of the October 21 denial of Intervenors' effort to terminate Court jurisdiction was