Schools' Minority Enrollment Could Violate State Mandates

Two magnet schools in Greenwich enroll a higher percentage of minority students than the state deems acceptable, raising the possibility that the state could cite the town, administrators said at a meeting Thursday.

Superintendent Sidney Freund and special projects manager John Curtin discussed the and magnet schools. The Connecticut Department of Education requires an individual school to reflect the district’s racial composition within 25 percentage points of each race’s total enrollment. The Greenwich school district enrolls about 9,000 students, of which 31.2 percent are ethnic minorities.

Hamilton Avenue enrolls a total of 333 students this year, of which 63.4 percent are minorities. New Lebanon enrolls 239 students, of which 63.6 percent are minorities. Consequently, these two magnet schools violate the state order.

Board of Education member Mike Bodson opposes changing the boundaries that demarcate the neighborhood schools. He feels it would hurt the desire to achieve a racial balance.

“I do not want to re-district,” Bodson said. “The last time we re-districted, it looked like we drew an octopus, ran it over, and placed it on a map.”

Board member Nancy Kail contended that “the problem is people like their neighborhood schools. How are we going to address this issue?

Board chairman Steven Anderson criticized the state for imposing an unfunded state mandate. The Greenwich school district allocates one-fourth of one percent of its budget to address this mandate.

“At the end of the day, I am amazed that the thing does not say anything about the student performance,” Anderson said. “From the board of education perspective, it comes down to how much money do you want to spend to meet this unfunded state mandate?”

In 1989, a Hartford mother named Elizabeth Horton Sheff objected to Connecticut differentiating school districts on the between poor cities and rich towns. As a mother of a fourth-grade boy named Milo Sheff, she sued Governor William O’Neill, accusing the state of violating her son’s rights to equal opportunity. In 1995, Connecticut Superior Court Judge Harry Hammer ruled in favor of the state. In 1996, the Connecticut Supreme Court overturned Hammer’s decision.

In 2003, the Connecticut House of Representatives approved an out-of-court settlement with the plaintiff, and also passed a law requiring Hartford open eight racially integrated magnet schools. In 2004, Sheff accused the state of failing to accomplish the goal, claiming it failed to enroll a full capacity of students. This landmark court case brings ramifications to school districts in the Constitution State.

“We are supposed to move toward compliance of the law. Can you ever succeed?” Anderson said. “I honestly do not know. And at what cost is it to the school system?”

Anderson said he prefers to find an interim superintendent first before focusing on addressing the racial composition of the Greenwich magnet schools.

“I am pushing back a little back,” he said. “This is a huge conversation.”

Board vice chairman Leslie Moriarty called the physical space within the school buildings an issue.

“Our minority percentage in the district has increased by five percentage points in five years,” she said. “It will continue to be a challenge, but I think we have a responsibility to talk about it.

Board member Marianna Ponns Cohen supported discussing this matter in greater depth in the future. New Lebanon enrolls so few students that a modest change in students accounts for a sizable percentage difference.

“It is more than a money issue. We need to look at the central theme of a particular school,” she said. “We need to look at the role of magnets to work within the parameters of the existing law, to satisfy the role.”