Fayette County Insider - Schools

Desegregation Court Order

The U.S. Department of Justice has identified “several areas” where it believes that the Fayette County Board of Education (the “district”) needs to “take steps to comply with the existing desegregation orders and applicable federal law.”

In a five-page letter dated Jan. 28 and faxed to Director of Schools Myles Wilson, Kym Davis Rogers, a trial attorney for the Educational Opportunities Section of the Civil Rights Division, reported on the violations. The conclusions were based on a review of information received during a September visit she made to the county’s schools and the board’s responses to an information request.

The letter explains that at the time of the last court docket entry addressing student assignment in 1978, the school district operated nine elementary schools, each of which went through the eighth grade, and one high school with two campuses, one for ninth and tenth grades and one for eleventh and twelfth grades. For the 1979-80 school year, the district paired Moscow and Springhill elementary schools in accordance with the court’s July 1975 order.

Currently, the district is operating seven elementary schools, two junior high schools, and one high school.

3. changed the grade structure of each elementary school, in particular Oakland Elementary.

Each of these actions was taken without the approval of the court and without giving notice to the court or to the United States.

Additionally, the district failed to close Somerville Elementary and re-zone Somerville’s students to Jefferson Elementary, as was ordered by the court in July 1975. [Note: The plan called for additional land to be bought for an expansion of Jefferson Elementary that was to be done prior to moving the Somerville students to Jefferson.]

The letter points out that a district such as Fayette, which was once segregated by law and is still under a court order to desegregate, has a duty and a responsibility “to take all steps necessary to eliminate the vestiges of the unconstitutional de jure system.” This duty is critically important during times of school construction and closings because the consequences of these choices are far reaching.

Not only has the district operated outside the relevant court orders, the actions of the district, to date, have not further desegregated the district’s schools.

Based on data provided for August 2007, Rogers’ letter notes that black students comprised 57 percent of all elementary school enrollment, but only 20 percent of the enrollment for Somerville Elementary, despite the school’s central location in the county, and only 24 percent of Oakland Elementary, the district’s largest elementary school.

“Both Somerville and Oakland were white schools when this lawsuit was filed,” the letter points out.

Applying a 15 percent plus/minus variance from the district-wide ratio of black to white elementary students for the 2007-2008 school year, the letter states that all of the elementary schools are “racially identifiable.”

After characterizing the failure to close Somerville Elementary as “a missed opportunity to further desegregation”, the letter describes last year’s board actions to address the overcrowding at Oakland Elementary as not only “failing to further desegregation at the elementary school level” but also having “a negative impact on the racial make-up” of the two junior high schools.

Oakland’s attendance zone is between the zones of two elementary schools with predominantly black student populations – Southwest Elementary (87 percent black) and Northwest Elementary (88 percent black). Both of these schools have small student populations in buildings that are under-utilized. This year the enrollment at Southwest is 119 students in a building with a capacity for 450 students, and Northwest’s enrollment is 156 students in a building with a capacity for 400 students.

Instead of “utilizing the available space in the neighboring elementary schools” by adjusting the attendance zones, the district elected to move the fifth and sixth grades from Oakland Elementary to West Junior High

Noting out-of-zone student transfer data was requested last spring for the school years 2004-05 to 2006-07, the letter states that the information provided by the district in response is “incomplete in many respects.”

Although detailed transfer information such as the student’s grade level, race or ethnic group, sending school (school which student is zoned to attend), receiving school (school to which transfer was sought), and reason for the request was asked for, only charts were provided for each school and were “missing much of the requested data.”

The letter says that the data provided by the district indicates that students are being permitted to transfer for “reasons other than those permitted by the district’s policies or relevant court orders.” Examples of improper transfer reasons cited include “change in principal” and “parent recommendation.”

The board has again been asked to provide complete information on the number of students who have requested transfers within the school district.

The racial compositions of the faculty and staff at some schools are noted as deviating substantially from the racial composition in the district as a whole. In fact, the letter points out that the racial composition of the faculty and staff at several schools clearly identifies the racial composition of the student body.

Throughout the letter, questions are asked and explanations of board decision-making are requested, including:

? Explain what consideration was given to redrawing the attendance zones of Oakland, Southwest and Northwest, as well as the attendance zones of Somerville and Jefferson.

? What consideration has been given to address the racial identifiability of these schools?

? Questions relating to the invitation to students to transfer out of Oakland Elementary due to the overcrowding.

? What steps, if any, have been considered to address the racial composition of faculty and staff?

At the Oct.4 meeting of the school board, Wilson reported that a U.S. attorney had visited the schools in September and would be preparing a report. He promised to make the report available to the public when he received it.

A request for a copy of the Justice Department’s letter was faxed to the Director of Schools late on Wednesday, Feb. 20, and again on Thursday.

On Feb. 25 Wilson responded by fax, saying that public release of the letter was waiting on the advice of the school attorney, Tom Minor, regarding confidentiality concerns. He reported that the letter “refers by name to several students” and “identifiable groups of students.” His fax concludes by noting that “more information on this matter” should be available by the end of the week.

Neither a copy of the letter nor additional information on its release has ever been received from Wilson.

View/Download Feb. 25 Fax from Director of Schools on Release of Letter (PDF)