Court’s first deadline in landmark SC school-equity case will pass unmet

State lawmakers have until Monday to ask the state’s highest court to reconsider deadlines it imposed on the state for producing legislation aimed at improving public schools.

Meanwhile, the first of those deadlines will pass unmet Thursday.

Last month, the S.C. Supreme Court gave legislators and school districts suing the state for more money until Thursday to pick experts to evaluate legislative proposals to the state’s K-12 public schools.

The court also gave lawmakers until Feb. 1 to offer legislation. But lawmakers said the deadlines would be impossible to meet and vowed to ignore them.

A spokesman for House Speaker Jay Lucas said legislators thought they had until last week to ask the court to rehear or reconsider the deadlines or offer other relief.

But after historic rainfall and flooding struck the state earlier this month, lawmakers, with the school districts’ consent, asked the court for more time to make those requests.

Last Thursday, the court agreed to take those requests until Monday.

Check back for details.

This story was originally published October 14, 2015 at 12:03 PM with the headline "Court’s first deadline in landmark SC school-equity case will pass unmet."