Dilemma clouds school choice

As the board nears a vote, the "extended grandfathering'' proposal answers one group's demands for guarantees while upsetting another.

By KELLY RYAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 22, 2000

LARGO -- In the seven months Pinellas County has sought feedback on its school choice plan, two opposing camps have emerged.

Parents, mostly white and from north county, have loudly opposed the sweeping change, saying they made a choice when they bought their homes near "good" schools. They want to be guaranteed they can send their children to their current zoned neighborhood schools through high school.

On the other side is a smaller group that the School Board, by federal court order, is required to hear: the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the District Monitoring and Advisory Committee. This group argues that such a guarantee doesn't help, and could hurt, African-American children who have never had the luxury of attending schools near home.

On Tuesday, School Board members will have to decide which perspective has been more persuasive.

Superintendent Howard Hinesley's recommended plan, to begin in fall 2003, calls for the district to be divided into four areas for elementary school, three areas for middle and one area for high school. A student would apply to attend one of his top choices in his area, and a computer would process the application and assign the student where there is space.

Certain students would have preference to attend their top-choice school -- and this is where most of the passionate debate has centered.

Hinesley's recommendation contains a provision called "extended grandfathering" that answers the complaints of North Pinellas parents, most of whom have never been affected by the federal court order requiring busing for desegregation and race ratios in schools.

Extended grandfathering would allow a student enrolled in the 2002-03 school year to sidestep the new system and attend the elementary, middle and high schools to which he is now zoned. To be eligible for the privilege, a student would have to stay at the same address through his entire school career.

At least three-quarters of the letters, e-mails and phone messages the district has received during a monthlong discussion of the details of the choice plan strongly endorse extended grandfathering.

The letters decry the increased cost of busing students and the possibility that students might have to ride two buses to school. They say choice will erode community support for schools and prevent neighborhood children from helping each other with homework. They say it will kill property values. Some ask for the vote to be delayed.

"If you take away our extended grandfathering, you are in effect taking away MY CHOICE," wrote Denise Byrn, a parent in Safety Harbor. "Because you know and I know that our current school track is what we are going to ask for, but your plan (i.e. a computer) is going to tell me where my kids get to go. So what happened to MY CHOICE?"

The district has described the choice plan in school newsletters, in letters home to every student and more than 100 public meetings. Yet, the district has only gotten feedback from a couple hundred parents -- not many in a district with 110,000 students. The residents engaged in the debate remain confused about the history of the court order and why the choice movement started in the first place.

"It would be the ultimate irony for this county to divert significant amounts of energy, time and money away from its core objective of achieving universal educational excellence, to foster an assignment plan which may well bring with it greater levels of segregation, more busing, predictable parental dissatisfaction, and the erosion of overall confidence in our public school system," wrote Safety Harbor city leaders, including Mayor Pam Corbino.

In 1964, the Legal Defense Fund sued the district, charging that it operated inferior schools for black children. That lawsuit led to a 1971 court order that, to this day, requires race ratios in schools and long bus rides for some students to keep schools desegregated.

The court order has most affected southern Pinellas County, where most of the district's black children live. While most white students in north county have attended neighborhood schools, most black children are shipped up to 14 miles from home.

The Legal Defense Fund and the School Board last year reached a settlement, now approved by a federal judge, to end the case and eventually end ratios in 2007. The public debate and private negotiations lasted more than two years -- and the whole time the plan was to replace traditional zoning with a system of choice, not neighborhood schools.

Still, several groups, including the teachers union, feel the debate has gone too quickly. With a price tag of more than $6-million per year, the union thinks the controlled choice plan might cost too much.

"I don't think there's anything legally binding them to make a decision on Tuesday," said Rob McMahon, president of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association. "This is too important to make a bad decision."

The two sides chose choice for a reason. In a county where most black and white families live apart, they hope that parents will eventually realize the best schools aren't always down the street. They hope parents will choose schools outside their neighborhoods, keeping schools integrated by choice rather than force.

That is why the Legal Defense Fund opposes extended grandfathering. Lawyers say that provision will maintain the status quo -- meaning white students will still enjoy what they have always had, and black students, who don't have defined school tracks near home, will continue to be bused far away.

Rather than giving so many parents an out, lawyers have asked, why not do a better job explaining how choice can encourage more parental involvement in schools and school improvement based on competition?

Hinesley's plan would allow black children to have the extended grandfathering privilege near home -- but the district would choose which school they could attend. That, lawyers argue, is not the same privilege as for students whose parents chose the schools.

Only a handful of parents appear to agree.

"I believe that the school choice plan finally provides the option to us and other families who do not have the means or ability to live in an affluent neighborhood in north county," wrote Joyce Nutta, a Pinellas Park parent who sends her children to private school but would like to send them to public school. "Phasing in the plan by guaranteeing current students placement in their neighborhood schools would severely impede the attainment of equity for decades to come."

Some parents have vowed to vote out of office School Board members who don't support extended grandfathering. The Legal Defense Fund has vowed to take the board members back through mediation, and possibly federal court, if they do support extended grandfathering.

The debate resumes at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, at 301 Fourth St. SW in Largo.

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