Edwin Rios:

For the past few years, residents in the city of Gardendale, Alabama, have been pushing to take over a county high school, a middle school, and two elementary schools from the greater Jefferson County school system, one of several districts still bound by a federal desegregation order. Residents argue that they want local control. The city’s mayor went so far as to tell the Washington Post that it was about “keeping our tax dollars here with our kids, rather than sharing them with kids all over Jefferson County.” Opponents of the plan, though, claim the move is mired in racial overtones and the pursuit of a divided system that benefits Gardendale’s families at the expense of others in the county.

In April, a federal judge ruled that although the community’s efforts to separate from the countywide district were in fact racially motivated, Gardendale could start its own district of 2,134 students this fall with two elementary schools and could eventually purchase a $55 million high school from Jefferson County, as long as it established a court-approved desegregation plan within three years. That plan, though, is now on hold—both the case’s plaintiffs, who wanted to block the split, and Gardendale’s attorneys, who were upset the judge’s ruling gave them two schools instead of the desired four, opted to appeal the decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Gardendale is just one of many communities—often small, wealthier enclaves—which have attempted to secede from larger school districts across the country over the past 15 years, sparking a nationwide debate about modern segregation