Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Schools

School plan inches closer

Board members okay student assignment proposal. The final vote comes Dec. 11.

By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published November 14, 2007

LARGO - The Pinellas School Board on Tuesday voted 6-1 to approve a controversial student assignment plan, overriding eleventh-hour efforts to delay a decision on an initiative two years in the making.

The vote was the first of two that will determine whether the district will return to a system of neighborhood schools beginning with the 2008-09 academic year. A final vote is scheduled for Dec. 11.

About two dozen parents and community activists, including representatives from the St. Petersburg and Clearwater-Upper Pinellas branches of the NAACP, pleaded with board members to postpone their decision until more provisions for improving black student achievement can be built into the plan.

But board members, with the exception of chairwoman Mary Brown, said it was time to move on.

"We do need to look at student achievement, but that's not part of the student assignment plan," said board member Peggy O'Shea. "The specifics of how to raise achievement need to be a separate issue."

Acknowledging the concern about the educational gap between black and white students, board member Carol Cook said further delay on the plan could prevent the board from working on the very issue the group has raised.

"We've been spending so much time on student assignment that we've not had as much time to be actively engaged in the student achievement piece," Cook said.

Board member Janet Clark said the board should proceed with the plan despite the likelihood that some south Pinellas schools will become segregated for the first time in 35 years.

"We keep hearing we don't want it to happen," Clark said, "but I don't hear any solutions for keeping it from happening."

Among those who disagreed with the board were members of the District Monitoring and Advisory Committee, a group made up of educators and community leaders that advises the board on issues related to black students. The group presented a list of recommendations it believes should be in the plan, including the consideration of a parent's workplace address in addition to a home address in defining proximity to schools.

DMAC and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund have raised legal questions about the student assignment plan. The Fund has threatened to take the district to court over it. Officials in the Fund's national office are backing the effort, said Enrique Escarraz, a St. Petersburg lawyer who works with the group.

The 6-1 vote does not change the Fund's position, Escarraz said. He has asked to meet with district officials to continue discussing the plan. The district has agreed to meet with him, but no date has been set.

The new plan would replace the 4-year-old choice plan by assigning every student to a "close-to-home" school. Students also could apply to a special program such as a magnet or fundamental school or a high school career academy.

They could attend any other school in the county provided there was space, and they could get there without a district bus ride.

Brown, the board's only black member, expressed concern Tuesday that while the plan offers parents choices besides their "close-to-home" school, lack of transportation and the number of available seats limits those choices.

But superintendent Clayton Wilcox said the district can't offer a "blank check" guaranteeing that all parents will get their children into their first-choice school.

"Some people, as much as they desire to get somewhere, will not be able to get there," Wilcox said. "It is a truth of this plan. It is the truth of any plan."

Board member Linda Lerner, who for weeks had wanted to delay the plan, voted with the majority to support it. She said her vote hinged on board members' agreement that they would include a "compact" in the plan requiring them to regularly evaluate the impact of assigning children to neighborhood schools.

"I decided that I wanted to be part of the solution," Lerner said after the meeting. "But if the board hadn't been receptive to the idea of the compact, I would have voted against it."

Times staff writer Thomas C. Tobin contributed to this report. Donna Winchester can be reached at winchester@sptimes.com or 727 893-8413.

[Last modified November 14, 2007, 13:30:25]