Leandro lawsuit lands a new NC Supreme Court date over multimillion-dollar education plan

The landmark education lawsuit known as Leandro has its next court date – to determine the fate of a multimillion-dollar plan to shore up North Carolina's schools – in just two months.

The North Carolina Supreme Court set a date of Feb. 22, 2024, for oral arguments in the case.

Parties will argue over whether the court's previous rulings in the case should apply to all North Carolina schools – and whether the court has already ruled on that.

How the case turns out could influence whether the multimullion-dollar education plan can go forward as written and whether some schools would even be included in it. The plan would raise employee pay, increase funding for higher-needs students and expand academic programming, among other things.

The lawsuit, Hoke County Board of Education v. State of North Carolina, is known as Leandro for an original plaintiff. It was first filed in 1994 by families and school boards in lower-income counties that alleged the state was not providing an adequate education. The Supreme Court first sided with the plaintiffs in 1997 and 2004, finding the state both responsible for providing a "sound basic education" and that it was not doing so.

The state Supreme Court ruled in November 2022 that state executives must transfer whatever remained of the $1.75 billion required under the plan for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years. The entire eight-year plan calls for $5 billion more through 2028.

But attorneys for legislative leaders have argued the Supreme Court hasn't settled whether its findings in 2004 should apply to all North Carolina schools, because not all schools provided evidence for the case.

Attorneys for the school boards, families and some state entities argue the Supreme Court addressed this concern in its 2022 ruling and that lawmakers are attempting to get a more favorable court to "rehear" the case.

In 2022, the state Supreme Court held a 4-3 Democratic majority.

The court agreed to take the case back up just weeks after it flipped to a 5-2 Republican majority in 2023.