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The TUSD Governing Board repealed a long-existing policy that dictated student transfers and placement by race Tuesday night, less than a week after a federal judge said the policy was unconstitutional.

The 3-2 vote immediately placed Tucson Unified School District under the state's open-enrollment policy, allowing students to enroll at their home schools or the schools of their choice within the district. It was unclear if the district will allow students to transfer to other school districts.

"The staff is poised to immediately implement the open-enrollment policy," Superintendent Roger Pfeuffer said.

Pfeuffer said the district will immediately notify parents who are on a waiting list to have their children attend other schools, and if there are places for them, then the students will be transferred.

While a majority of Tucson Unified School District's governing board said its ethnic and racial plan must be repealed along with related policies involving school transfers and admissions to magnet schools, members Judy Burns and Adelita Grijalva, who voted against the measure, raised concerns the district shouldn't act without seeking community input and crafting a plan to replace the policies.

"We, at this point, don't have a policy to replace this one that we are repealing," Grijalva said. "I'm reluctant to repeal this policy without us having something else in place."

Student transfers and placements at the city's largest school district have, since 1969, been defined by what is known as "Board Policy 5090." Essentially, the policy only allows students to transfer if it improves ethnic balances of receiving schools and doesn't imbalance the makeups of home schools.

It was designed to support desegregation, but the policy has, over time, limited school choice for minorities who make up the majority of the district's roughly 57,000 students.

Last week, U.S. District Judge David C. Bury said the policy was unconstitutional, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's June ruling that rejects race-based school placements.

"Policy 5090 extends across the district to disproportionately limit open-enrollment choices for minority students," Bury wrote.

The ruling was part of a larger interim order that requires TUSD to show, next month, that it has fulfilled a 29-year desegregation order and to file a comprehensive plan outlining how it will handle student placement and student choice once the desegregation order is lifted.

Those board members in support of repealing Policy 5090 said Bury made it clear it is unconstitutional and the district needs to act.

"I think in order to be in compliance with that court order it's incumbent with this board tonight to repeal that motion," board member Bruce Burke said.

"It's denying educational opportunities for minority students," board President Joel Ireland said. "The other plain fact is, the court ordered it."

Burns said she thought the district was going about things in the wrong order. The district is required to meet with the plaintiffs who sued the district over its compliance with the desegregation order within the next week. Burns said she didn't understand why the district didn't wait for those meetings to occur before simply moving to repeal its policies.

She also said repealing the order without a plan would create chaos. "I think what could happen tomorrow (Wednesday) when people see there are virtually no restrictions until we adopt new policy, it will find some schools emptied out and some schools overcrowded," she said Tuesday.

By the same 3-2 vote, the board repealed a related policy specific to school attendance and transfers.

By a unanimous vote the board changed language for admissions to magnet schools to be based on supporting "diversity" rather than "racial and ethnic balance."

In other business:

● The district officially began its search to replace Superintendent Pfeuffer after his tenure ends.

● The board accepted a technology plan that sets parameters for Internet bandwidth for the next five to 10 years.

● The district has purchased close to 50 portable air-conditioning units and has hired five more mechanics to help address its recent air-conditioning woes.