THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 26, 1995 TAG: 9505260724
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B9 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 120 lines
The city's school system is seeking a three-year, $8.7 million federal grant to lure white students into predominantly black schools, a move designed to improve racial integration in a voluntary way.
School officials would use the money to create special ``magnet'' programs at six schools, four of them inner-city elementary schools that draw heavily from public housing neighborhoods and now are more than 90 percent black.
Each of the schools would focus on a central theme, such as math and science or foreign languages and international studies, and would be geared toward producing high academic achievement.
Superintendent Roy D. Nichols Jr. has pushed the plan as a way to give parents more control over their kids' schooling and to improve the racial balance in the city's school system.
``I think it's the beginning of a new era in terms of allowing parental choice in selecting the type of instructional program their child participates in,'' said Nichols, who is ending his second year as superintendent in Norfolk and wants to make school choice a signature program.
``I've always been a proponent of choice,'' Nichols said. ``This will create an instructional environment that is better than anything we now offer in any of our schools.''
The School Board endorsed Nichols' plan Thursday.
Before court-ordered busing and desegregation plans of the 1970s, more whites than blacks attended the city's public schools. Now more than 60 percent of the students are black despite a citywide population that is 57 percent white and 39 percent black.
Norfolk school officials, no longer under court order, in 1986 stopped cross-town busing for desegregation in elementary schools, opting instead to allow kids to attend schools closest to their neighborhood.
The move, however, essentially has resegregated 10 schools that are almost entirely black and concentrated in poverty.
``There are some in the community today who still feel we need to address the isolation of race in these schools,'' School Board Chairman Ulysses Turner said.
If the school system is awarded the U.S. Department of Education grant, Nichols said, the magnet schools ultimately might attract white students who now attend private schools.
Nichols said it may be July or August before federal officials announce their decision.
``The competition is pretty intense,'' he said.
The schools chosen by Norfolk administrators to participate include five elementary schools and one high school, Booker T. Washington, an all-black school in the days before desegregation that even now is 80 percent black, enrollment figures show.
Four of the elementary schools selected are more than 97 percent black - Chesterfield Heights, Jacox, James Monroe and Tidewater Park.
The other elementary school, Camp Allen, has a minority population of 52 percent, but officials said it was chosen because it was in danger of becoming more segregated.
Nichols said that students who currently attend the schools would be guaranteed slots. The goal, he said, is to increase the number of white students who attend each school by 3 percent per year over the three years of the grant.
The programs would affect about 2,500 students citywide in grades K-5.
While the 10 majority-black ``community'' elementary schools have received extra resources since busing was stopped in 1986, Nichols said the magnet grant for the schools chosen would be the first step toward ending the ``isolation'' of the black students who attend them.
``They're growing up in a world where they don't see anything other than black faces, and the larger world is not like that,'' Nichols said. ``Bringing this federal money into the city could significantly improve the academic program in those schools and enrich the children in them.''
The grant money would be used to equip the schools with technology, such as computers and video cameras, to train teachers and to develop innovative educational programs that would raise the academic performance of students.
Officials acknowledged that the toughest challenge will be to win over white parents. Some parents simply like the idea of sending their kids to a neighborhood school, often within walking distance.
But school officials envision magnet programs that will be strong and different enough to sell them.
``We're hoping we could make them inviting and academically stable and make it so students could say, `Gee, I really want to be there,' '' said Margaret B. Saunders, assistant superintendent for instruction. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
SIX NORFOLK SCHOOLS CHOSEN
The Norfolk school system has applied for an $8.7 million federal
grant to create special ``magnet'' programs at six predominantly
black schools in an effort to attract white students to the schools.
Below are the schools that would participate and a brief description
of what they would offer:
Camp Allen Elementary: Foreign language/international studies.
The program would focus on the integration of history and geography
studies, and students would take one of two foreign languages.
Students would develop international perspectives.
Chesterfield Heights Elementary: Math, science and technology.
The program would be geared toward teaching skills and applications
that students probably will need in the workplace of the future.
Students will use individual learning plans and will use computers,
educational TV and teleconferencing as instructional tools.
James Monroe Elementary: Montessori. The program encourages
self-education rather than rigid activity, and it emphasizes
training of the senses. Focus is on children's developmental needs.
Jacox Elementary: Visual and performing arts. The program would
be available for students with a special interest in the arts, such
as dance, piano, instrumental music, photography, drama, voice and
strings. Students would engage in academic study for 75 percent of
the day and on the arts for the remainder.
Tidewater Park Elementary: Traditional. The program would revolve
around strong basic skills, discipline and parent involvement.
Parents would sign contracts to work with kids on discipline,
attendance and homework.
Booker T. Washington High: International Baccalaureate and
pre-International Baccalaureate. This intensive academic program
offers a diploma that is an entree to the world's most prestigious
universities. It promotes international understanding, focusing on
languages, individuals and society, math and experimental sciences.
It includes a unique course, ``Theory of Knowledge.''
by CNB