Schools ask NC Supreme Court to hold off on ruling throwing out funding lawsuit
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- Five Leandro school districts asked the N.C. Supreme Court to hold off on its dismissal.
- The court ruled 4-3 on April 2 to dismiss Leandro case and void the 2022 funding order.
- Cumberland, Halifax, Hoke, Robeson and Vance counties have until May 7 to seek rehearing
The five original school districts in the Leandro school funding case have asked the state Supreme Court to hold off on its decision to dismiss the long-running lawsuit.
On April 2, the N.C. Supreme Court ruled 4-3 to dismiss the Leandro case, in the process throwing out a 2022 decision to order the transfer of state funds to public schools. In a motion filed Wednesday, the five school districts asked the court to stay its ruling while it prepares to ask the justices to rehear its decision to throw out the lawsuit.
“In light of the thirty-year history of this case and its great public significance, a stay pending a petition for rehearing furthers the public interest by demonstrating that the courts are taking care to resolve all aspects in an orderly and proper manner,” according to the motion filed by the school districts.
The motion for a stay was first reported by Carolina Journal.
Attorneys representing the school systems of Cumberland, Halifax, Hoke, Robeson and Vance counties have until May 7 to request a rehearing. The court may reject the request, which would be the final act in the 32-year-old case.
Public school supporters have cited the dismissal of the Leandro case as one of the reasons they’ll march in downtown Raleigh on May 1 in a mass protest organized by the North Carolina Association of Educators.
Court dismissed 32-year-old lawsuit
The Leandro case — which got its name from one of the families that was originally part of the lawsuit — was filed in 1994 by the five school districts to seek more state funding.
It led to historic state Supreme Court rulings in 1997 that students have a constitutional right to a sound basic education and in 2004 that the state was failing to live up to that obligation.
In 2021, a trial judge adopted a plan that called for spending at least $5.6 billion over eight years to try to provide students across the state with highly qualified teachers and principals.
In November 2022, the Supreme Court upheld the trial judge’s decision that the courts could order money be spent to provide a sound basic education. The court had a Democratic majority at the time.
Republicans gained the majority on the court in the 2022 election and agreed to rehear the case.
In the court’s majority opinion this month, GOP Chief Justice Paul Newby dismissed the lawsuit. Newby said the lawsuit was improperly expanded to be a statewide case in 2017, so he threw out every ruling made since then, including the 2022 decision.
Newby also said that the courts do not have the constitutional authority to make education policy decisions such as ordering the spending of state dollars for schools. The chief justice said the judicial branch is not the venue in which to seek education policy reform.
The decision was denounced by the two Democratic justices and one Republican justice. The Democrats called it a betrayal of the constitutional rights of the state’s children. The Republican said the decision ignored the central issue of the case by dismissing it due to procedural errors that could easily be remedied.
This story was originally published April 24, 2026 at 4:09 PM with the headline "Schools ask NC Supreme Court to hold off on ruling throwing out funding lawsuit."
