Boulder considers proposals to boost integration

Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 1, 2006 at midnight

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BOULDER - Students entitled to free or reduced-cost lunches could receive open-enrollment preference at more affluent - and mostly Anglo - schools as part of a plan to boost ethnic and class integration.

Minority students would receive free transportation to the mostly Anglo schools, and English language instruction would follow them to their new schools.

Neighborhood students would not be displaced.

The package of proposals, unveiled Tuesday before the Board of Education, comes amid increasing concern that some Boulder schools are growing more heavily Hispanic and dominated by students of poverty, while others remain mostly Anglo.

The increasing segregation has occurred as Anglo parents take advantage of the state's open enrollment policies to move their children out of mostly Hispanic schools, a process some have termed "white flight."

For example, Columbine Elementary School on Boulder's north side is 82 percent Hispanic, even though the surrounding neighborhood is heavily Anglo.

Administrators based the proposals presented Tuesday on recommendations of a community study committee that reported last year.

School board president Helayne Jones said a vote on the package is months away.

"There will be mulitple meetings where we will discuss," Jones said. She wants to see more study of how enrollment figures might look at schools throughout the district if the proposals are adopted.

Under the plan, needy students will receive enrollment preference if they choose to attend a school where few students receive free or reduced-cost lunches. The preference would remain in effect until the school hits a target number of such students.

The target is not specified. However, the community study group recommended pegging the number to the district's average enrollment of such students.

The district's Montessori school adopted such a program this year at the urging of parents who want greater diversity. Enrollment of poor students at the Montessori school doubled under the program, from 5.5 percent to 10.9 percent, said Sandy Ripplinger, one of the district's two elementary school directors.

Under the plan presented Tuesday, the same strategy would be tried in schools on Boulder's south side. Parents and teachers at those schools seemed to welcome the idea in discussions over the past few days, said Sheri Williams, the district's other elementary education director.

School board members said they want greater assurance the minority students will be welcome.

"The last thing we want to do is bring a bunch of families in, and they feel unwelcome, and they're out next year," said board member Lesley Smith.

Jones and other board members appeared wary of choosing one part of the district for an experiment.

The minority students would receive English language help at their new schools. Those services are now concentrated at a few schools to save money, said deputy superintendent Chris King.

The plan doesn't address the question of how to attract more Anglo students back to heavily Hispanic schools, such as Columbine.

That problem is being tackled by a parent-teacher committee at Columbine, which has conducted parent surveys, said Ripplinger. Anglo parents said they might be attracted to Columbine by an emphasis on math and a talented-and-gifted program, she said.

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