HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Two weeks after the courtroom showdown between Huntsville and the federal government, the judge opted to ask for more information and lots of it.

U.S. District Judge Madeline Hughes Haikala asked Huntsville City Schools for more data on test scores and racial composition of schools, on attendance boundaries and course offerings. But some of the records she requested had not been raised in legal briefs by either side.

That new data includes a look at private school attendance.

First, here's a look at what Huntsville reported on school-age children who live in each school zone.

This chart places that number alongside what Huntsville reported as the attendance for each school.

You can see the gulf between the number of residents and the number of pupils at some schools. Meanwhile Huntsville High reports more pupils than there are children in the neighborhood.

Why would that matter?

Huntsville remains under a 1970 desegregation court order. The school board in February asked the court to approve new school zones. The U.S. Department of Justice objected.

Specifically, the Department of Justice argues that Huntsville should zone more of the Butler students, the majority of whom are black, into majority white Huntsville High.

But the above chart suggests that the Justice Department plan has the potential to overcrowd Huntsville High, should nearly 900 students return to their home zone.

So where are all those students who live in the Butler zone?

Counting kids in Huntsville is never straightforward.

But the short answer is: They are not in private school.

The judge, in her sweeping information request, asked for: "The total number of students, by race, who attend private school from each public school's live-in attendance zone."

The next chart shows the total number of private school students, as Huntsville provided, for the whole system broken down by race.

Overall, 41 percent of students in Huntsville are black.

Yet above you can see that white students are more likely than black students to leave Huntsville for private school. Yet predominately black schools, such as Butler and Johnson, see lower rates of use compared to number of residents.

In part, that's because Huntsville for decades has run a pipeline of transfers from north to south.

Thousands of students every day leave neighborhood zones to attend other city schools through a variety of options, from race-based majority-to-minority transfers to students who switch to be near a parent who is a teacher to hundreds and hundreds of magnet school students.

Some neighborhood schools, such as Huntsville High, see a net gain of scores of transfer students each year, while other schools, like Butler, lose scores.

Here's a look at just some of the majority-to-minority transfers, data also requested by the judge. (This chart doesn't count magnet students and all other transfers.)

AL.com last week looked at this transfer data, along with AP courses and racial composition.

All of that came up during testimony last month. But not much was said about private school attendance.

Alabama code section 16-28-7 holds that private schools must report all enrolled students and their addresses to the local superintendent. The law says church schools are exempted, but parents using church schools must report their child's attendance to the local public schools.

From those reports, Huntsville compiled some spotty, but interesting data.

Here's more of what she is seeing in relation to elementary schools:

Students in Huntsville move in all directions. But a pattern begins to emerge.

Most transfers are heading from north Huntsville to south Huntsville, from majority black to majority white schools, and most private school students live in majority white school zones, and they leave space available for transfers.

The judge has received dozens of community letters, nearly all breaking along racial lines, letters she has added to the ever-expanding court file in the 51-year-old desegregation lawsuit.

The majority of black citizens who wrote letters and all but one black elected official have urged the court to support the Justice Department.

"The shifting resources and the overall neglect by HCS has branded and characterized northwest schools as failing," wrote Madison County Commissioner Bob Harrison this month. "The children in northwest schools have not failed but HCS has failed northwest schools"

The majority of white residents and officials, including the mayor and the Chamber of Commerce, have urged the judge to support Huntsville. The latest community letter arrived Monday from Beth Moore, a parent in the Blossomwood area.

"Please reconsider approving the submitted HCS plan vs. the DOJ solution," writes Moore. "You are not hearing from the parents of the students against the DOJ solution because their solution is to give up and to pull their students out of a very successful school district and home school or send them to private school."

The two sides faced off in federal court in Huntsville at the end of May. What comes next is up to the judge.