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A New Day For Pinellas Schools

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 26, 2007

The other day the Pinellas County School Board agreed to a student assignment plan that will steer students to schools closer to home beginning with the 2008-09 school year. As a result, the county joins hundreds of other school districts that have been freed from desegregation court orders, most of which seemed to emphasize the co-mingling of black and white students more than the quality of the education they were receiving.

Predictably, some fear the 5-2 decision, which will give students and parents the opportunity to choose between designated schools, will turn back the clock to the bad old days of segregation.

"I believe we're rushing to resegregate the area below Central," said Mary Brown, a member of the county's District Monitoring and Advisory Committee, referring to areas in south St. Petersburg. Many community groups also expressed fears that the new plan would widen the achievement gap between black and white students.

It is important to keep in mind that even if more schools become majority-minority, we are not about to return to the old dual system. If the word "resegregation" - which is used often by those who want to keep the school district under some kind of race-conscious assignment plan - is to have any real meaning, it must refer to what the U.S. Supreme Court confronted when it made the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954: laws prohibiting students of different races from attending the same public schools. That simply is not going to happen.

Additionally, the new plan is estimated to save the district as much as $5 million in transportation costs. That is money that can go toward programs to close the achievement gap.

To the school board's credit, a "grandfathering" provision was inserted in the plan to allow students to finish at their current schools if they so desire. This is in sharp contrast to court-ordered busing plans of the past that gave students no choice at all.

Hillsborough County's student choice plan has received few complaints since the district achieved unitary status in 2001. Most parents have chosen schools close to home, but they have other choices as well. There is no reason a similar plan cannot work in Pinellas.

A student should be able to receive a good education regardless of where he goes to school. That should be the goal of every school district. Now that Pinellas schools will be guided more by educators instead of lawyers and judges, the opportunity is there.

"This will be the first time in over 35 years of federal supervision of this school district that we truly have local control," said school board chairwoman Nancy Bostock, "and I think that in and of itself is a major accomplishment and a worthy goal of this long process."

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