Date: Fri 25-Oct-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: DOTTIE

Quick Words:

schools-integration-diversity

Full Text:

Racial Isolation Must End, Panelists And Students Agree

B Y D OROTHY E VANS

How should middle class suburban communities like Newtown respond to the July

Sheff Vs O'Neill ruling that called Connecticut schools both segregated and

unequal with regard to educational opportunity?

Newtown High juniors in Gwen Parks' and Linda Buonagario's Honors American

Studies classes posed that very question last week to a panel of experts at a

"Forum On Integration" they scheduled October 16 in the high school

auditorium.

Several student panelists shared the stage with an impressive array of

dignitaries, including Connecticut State Senator Judith Freeman and members of

Governor John G. Rowland's Educational Improvement Panel (EIP).

The governor's panel has been charged with the task of addressing

desegregation issues raised by the recent state Supreme Court ruling Sheff fvs

O'Neill and making recommendations based on their findings. They will begin

their formal deliberations in January 1997, but meanwhile, members are

gathering opinions and meeting with area students and educators at local

forums such as the Newtown High event.

"Connecticut has been running around this issue since the mid-1960s," said EIP

member, the Edna Garcia.

The Latino educator added she admitted feeling a certain "sense of despair"

that the state's segregation problems would ever be solved. She blamed school

district lines for accomplishing a separation of the haves from the have-nots,

calling them "borders to define the wealthy and poor places" within the state.

Forum panelist Denise Page, a member of the state's Anti-Crime Youth Council,

saw a need for more options to achieve diversity in the classrooms, to better

prepare students for the realities of the workplace.

"I'm not for forced busing," Ms Page said, but she supported buses as one more

option, as a means for students to travel across district lines and take

advantage of different educational programs.

She was particularly concerned that students who had not been exposed to

multi-cultural diversity in school, would be unprepared for the range of

ethnic backgrounds they would encounter in their future jobs.

Sue Snyder, President of Inventive Designs for Education and the Arts,

advocated an infusion of arts education into the inner city schools as a means

of increasing self esteem and reducing violence.

Most of the panelists agreed that racial isolation in Connecticut schools

could only be solved through a combination of steps taken voluntarily by the

various districts and through continuing dialogue.

Agnes Reilly, a Newtown resident and teacher at Bridgeport's Bassick school,

agreed that racial isolation had created a "huge chasm" between the two

groups.

"Can we go to school together and bridge that chasm?" Ms Reilly asked.

"We can impact the future," Newtown Superintendent of Schools John Reed said.

When the evening forum ended, there were still no definitive answers.

But Newtown High School Principal Bill Manfredonia thanked the students for

asking the questions, congratulating them for their willingness to take on a

problem that has daunted Connecticut educators for more than 30 years.

At the end of the evening, a member of the audience came forward during the

time allotted for public opinion. She identified herself as Shelley Geballe, a

mother living in Branford who had decided to drive her children "across the Q

bridge" so they could go to school in New Haven and enjoy the benefit of

education in a multi-cultural environment.

"I'm a product of the 60s and I haven't heard this kind of enthusiasm from

students since my college days," Mrs Geballe said.

"I salute you for your optimism and your idealism," she told the students,

"And I challenge you to continue making your views known."

What Newtown Students

Think Should Be Done

The 37 American government students had worked for weeks planning the "Forum

On Integration" and seemed encouraged by the fact that they were able to draw

together a panel of distinguished speakers.

They hoped also that through publicity, research and public relations

activities surrounding the forum, and through follow-up recommendations they

would make to Governor Rowland's integration advisory group in January,

something positive would be accomplished.

Junior Jodi Cross, who served as "Integration Forum" moderator, is one Newtown

student who has taken a leadership role concerning the need to end racial

isolation at Newtown High School.

She challenged Newtown administrators to "take risks," adding, "We don't need

a mandate" to start.

Her views were expressed in the following excerpt taken from an essay that

Jodi wrote for the October 1996 issue of Connected, a student-oriented journal

dealing with common student perspectives (http://www.ctkidslink.org).

Although Newtown schools certainly could not be called educationally

disadvantaged, Jodi said, there were other ways of looking at the problem.

In Jodi's view, racial isolation was a disturbing dilemma shared by all

Newtown students.

What about schools like mine that aren't being deprived of a quality

education?

Our only deprivation is that 99 percent of the students are white. In all 13

years of being at school, I have yet to sit next to a black child. It is not

that I choose not to sit with them, it is that I have never been given the

opportunity.

There is no racial mix. I do realize that if my school was mixed, and a

Hispanic person was sitting on one side of me and a black person on the other,

that I wouldn't necessarily learn more in class academically, but I would

acquire life skills.

What I would learn is tolerance for other races.