The Pulaski County Special School District took a step toward finally ending a decades-long federal desegregation lawsuit Monday morning with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Mills University Studies High School in the southeastern Pulaski County suburb of Sweet Home.

Teachers, administrators and media watched as Principal Damian Patterson and Pulaski County District 9 Justice of the Peace Tina Ward cut a green and gold ribbon at the front entrance to a new wing of the high school that will contain classrooms mostly for 9th graders. A new softball field has also been completed, and the district is working on a new basketball arena and other facilities.

Patterson, before cutting the ribbon, said that this event “is a long end to an arduous road that we have fought over the last 40 years … but

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