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In Pinellas schools, no more ratios

The county says upcoming court rulings could limit long-held efforts to keep a racial mix at its schools.

By THOMAS C. TOBIN
Published September 26, 2006

LARGO — Pinellas school officials brought greater clarity to the district’s future Tuesday, acknowledging that any efforts to keep schools racially desegregated after this year likely will be limited.

The race ratios that now keep many schools artificially integrated will expire at the end of this school year, School Board Attorney Jim Robinson told board members Tuesday. And any effort to extend the ratios or replace them with similar measures would almost certainly be successfully challenged in court, he said.

One idea under consideration by a citizen task force on choice is to assign students to schools based on family income or their academic ability.

But Robinson cautioned that such plans could be rejected if courts determine they are actually a way to fill schools based on race. The nation’s judges have become increasingly skeptical about the need to continue school desegregation, prompting a return in many communities to all-black or predominantly black schools.

Robinson’s statements came after board members asked for a clearer picture on how the next year or two will play out under the terms of an August 2000 settlement between the district and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Their 90-minute discussion marked the board’s first substantive conversation about the future of choice in more than three years. Some board members conceded their lack of dialogue on the topic has led to public confusion.

One common misconception is that the choice plan will end after this school year, they said.

Not so. Only the race ratios will end.

Robinson said the 2007-08 school year will serve as a kind of buffer between two eras.

Students will continue to be assigned to schools through the choice plan, but for the first time in more than three decades, the district will not consider their race.

Even without the ratios, however, the plan will retain features that might prevent some schools from resegregating, at least immediately.

The choice system is designed to primarily accommodate students moving into the district’s main entry points: kindergarten, sixth grade and ninth grade.

All other students are discouraged from switching schools by a rule that says they lose their current seat when they apply for a new school. Anyone can apply for a school, but they may or may not get the school of their choice.

That rule, and a general inclination of families to stay put once they land in a school, could dampen forces that might lead some schools to become predominantly black for first time since 1970, some board members said.

When Hillsborough County lifted its racial controls in the 2004-05 school year, many schools became predominantly black almost immediately.

Resegregation “may begin to happen” next year in Pinellas, said School Board member Nancy Bostock. “But I don’t think it’s going to happen overnight ... Most families want to stay where they are.’’

If resegregation were to occur in some schools, it would mean more families would be going to school close to home, said board member Jane Gallucci. That, on balance, would be a good thing, she said.

“I think we have to talk about the positives of those situations,’’ she said, noting that black and white parents alike have been calling for a system of neighborhood schools.

“When the school is in the community,’’ she said, “we all know that there are social positives that come with that,” such as parents being more available to children.

Gallucci said she worries that a lack of diversity in schools could lead to less understanding between races. But she said achieving diversity by taking kids away from their neighborhoods “hasn’t produced anything.”

Others, including some task force members and board member Mary Brown, say diversity is worth the effort.

After next school year, the School Board will be entitled to adopt a new system if it wants, said Robinson, the board attorney. Gone, he said, will be a requirement that the district adhere to 25 general principles when assigning students to schools. One of them says diversity in Pinellas schools “shall remain a valid and preeminent goal.’’

Robinson said, however, that he was confident the School Board will “always promote diversity in the broader sense.”

Robinson said the language of the settlement was vague on some key points, including how long the choice plan should survive after the 2007-08 school year and what kind of system, if any, would take its place.

He said it was his opinion that the district no longer is obligated to operate the plan after next school year because “there is a strong presumption (in federal court) against school desegregation remedies extending forever.’’

He also argued that the U.S. Supreme Court views court-ordered desegregation plans as “temporary measure(s) to remedy past discrimination.’’

For now, Robinson and other school lawyers must rely on judicial rulings that address the issue of assigning students by race but often are not precisely on point.

But that is about to change with two cases the Supreme Court will take up before the end of the year. The cases deal with race-conscious student assignment plans in Seattle and Jefferson County, Kentucky.

“Obviously,’’ Robinson said in a memo to the board, “school districts throughout the country eagerly await the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions.’’

[Last modified September 26, 2006, 23:11:46]