School plan draws few voices, much emotion

By KELLY RYAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 20, 2000

LARGO -- For two weeks, parents, school activists and teachers have begged Pinellas school leaders to focus on neighborhood schools and quality education as they develop a new way to assign students to schools.

But have all the people really spoken?

In a district with 110,000 students, only about 1,000 people have attended seven community meetings on the new student assignment plan to replace court-ordered busing for desegregation.

Only about 10 percent of those actually spoke to the school district officials -- leaving the School Board to make monumental changes in student assignment based on the input of representatives of less than 1 percent of the student population.

The calls and letters have been underwhelming, too: Only 20 callers dialed the district's "choice plan" voice mail, only about 40 sent e-mails and letters. Some were the same people who spoke at the meetings; at the meetings, some people spoke more than once.

A couple of those parents with an opinion expressed hope that the county's schools will be desegregated by choice long after court-imposed racial ratios disappear in 2007.

Others urged the board to focus more on the quality of education of black students, rather than their numerical representation in the county's public schools.

But the vast majority of the small crowds didn't seem to understand the need for a new student assignment plan. They want things to remain the same -- and they warned School Board members not to mess with their neighborhood schools, regardless of court order or the negotiated settlement of a 30-year-old lawsuit.

"I'm certainly disappointed in the attitude and the number of people who have attended," said School Board member Lee Benjamin. "When you boil it down, most parents only care about how their kids are affected. Very few have looked at it very objectively, like we have to do."

'Lack of understanding'

Several school officials said they were surprised by the misinformation and the accusations at the sessions.

Superintendent Howard Hinesley said two or three mothers approached him to say they had never realized that most African-American families don't have the chance to send their children to school close to home -- they are bused to meet race ratios at predominantly white schools.

For more black children to get off the bus, Hinesley has tried to explain, the entire county has to make some adjustments. Some parents have not been sympathetic.

"That was why we had the court order to start with, the lack of sensitivity," Hinesley said. "It is the administration's and the School Board's responsibility to develop a plan that is sensitive to the total community, including the children who have borne the burden of desegregation with forced busing.

"I'm telling myself it's a lack of understanding."

Whether parents like it or not, they will have to learn to live with a choice plan for school assignment.

In December, the School Board and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund reached a settlement to end a 29-year-old court order that has required cross-county busing for desegregation. The settlement outlines a framework to the new student assignment plan, but leaves the complex details to the School Board.

Between 2003 and 2007, school assignment would not be based solely on a student's home address. The county will be divided into four or fewer zones, students will select schools and assignments will be made through a lottery.

Each of the zones can have no more than 39 percent or less than 7 percent black student population. Black student enrollment at each school would be capped, though it would rise from 37 to 42 percent. The goal during the four-year "controlled choice" phase is to encourage diversity by choice.

U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday is appointed for life and he can handle this case as he sees fit. In setting a fairness hearing for Feb. 28, he gave preliminary approval of the negotiated settlement -- which means he has okayed the direction it has taken.

School officials are eager to see what kind of feedback Merryday gets. They will consider what they heard at the meetings, but they know there are more voices that have not been represented.

"We have to listen to what the people said, but we have to represent the people who were not there, too," School Board member Linda Lerner said. "Most of the people who spoke had not been impacted (by the court order)."

A lot of emotion

School officials hope that once map lines are drawn and a more detailed plan is floated, people will come out in force. The School Board is scheduled to get a plan in March and vote in May -- but given the utter confusion in recent weeks, several want to reconsider that time line.

School Board members Max Gessner, Jane Gallucci, Lerner and Benjamin want to talk about slowing the process down. Hinesley said it is worth talking about it because he, like School Board members, wants the community to have time to understand the plan.

Only School Board member Tom Todd said he will be ready to vote in May.

"A lot of what we heard was emotionality," Gallucci said. "I don't think we did a good job upfront educating our customers."

Enrique Escarraz, the lead attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, would love more time, too. But he is not sure it is wise to hold off on all decisions. The vote shouldn't be over the summer, when children aren't in school. And if the vote happens in the fall, that's close to election time.

"There is a potential for mischief," he said. "There is a potential for demagoguery that is not helpful to children at all."

People at the hearings said they wanted neighborhood schools and quality schools. North county parents said their property values would decline if neighborhood schools aren't a priority; they accused the district of already having a "secret plan" and threatened to pull their children out of public schools.

Some demanded that circles as big as two miles wide be drawn around schools, so children inside that circle are guaranteed a seat. Those sorts of comments didn't encourage Escarraz, but instead showed him that few people grasp how close together people in south Pinellas live.

"There were a lot of parents like that who had no idea of what they were saying," Escarraz said.

School Board members said they remain undecided about how to define proximity, but all expressed interest in trying to preserve some preference for some neighborhood children. How will they do that in a fair way, countywide? They're not sure.

In a couple of areas, School Board members got clear direction.

They heard that any children in a household -- whether they are blood relatives or not -- should be allowed to go to school together. They also heard that when the plan starts, students should be allowed to continue at their current school. Some parents said students should be allowed to complete the entire elementary, middle and high school track they were already on.

School Board members said that would require further study.

What happens next?

At 1 p.m. Friday, the School Board will meet to talk about their ideas and give direction to the district employees crafting the assignment plan. A plan is scheduled to be presented to the board March 14.

"We have to have something that is fair to everyone," Gessner said. "We're not going to be able to give everyone everything they want."

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