THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 3, 1996 TAG: 9608030354
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ROANOKE LENGTH: 58 lines
Cathleen Duly wants the city to abandon a voluntary desegregation system that is forcing her biracial daughter to attend a distant kindergarten class when she could walk across the street to school.
``I don't think it's right,'' she said. ``They're not looking at her as an individual, but at her color.''
Another mother, Kay Hale, wants the city to bus more black students to predominantly white schools outside their neighborhoods and improve racial balance. She plans to file a complaint with the U.S. Office of Civil Rights.
``We're getting hit from both ends,'' school board member Marilyn Curtis said Thursday. ``It's hard to please everyone.''
The city is busing hundreds of black children to elementary schools in predominantly white neighborhoods.
It also has developed a system of ``magnet schools,'' predominantly black schools with innovative educational programs designed to attract white students.
Federal guidelines require the city to try to achieve a 50-50 racial balance in magnet schools to help desegregate the school system, which is 40 percent black.
Duly's daughter, Jasmine Gunn, wants to attend kindergarten at the magnet school where she attended preschool, about a mile away from home, or at the magnet school across the street.
Because those schools have a high percentage of minority children, they are seeking white children to achieve a better racial balance.
So, the 5-year-old will have to attend a magnet school that is more than two miles from her home, or one on the other side of the city.
``I'm not going to send her to Fishburn Park so they can just have another black face,'' Duly said. ``I don't want to put my child where it fits the city's quota.''
Duly said the rules governing admissions and racial balance at the city's magnet schools teach children that race makes a difference - and that some are being denied opportunities because of their color.
``I'm getting tired of being asked what color she is. I don't look at her as white or black. To me, she's just Jasmine,'' said her mother, who is white.
Jasmine's father is black.
Under federal guidelines for magnet schools, there are two racial classifications: minority and nonminority, said Sandra Burks, director of Roanoke's magnet program.
All minorities, including blacks, Asians, Hispanics and biracial children, are grouped into one category.
Curtis said she will investigate Jasmine's case to determine whether any exceptions or adjustments can be made to the admission procedures.
``I would like to see her go to the closest school, if possible,'' she said, ``but that might not be possible because of the guidelines.'' ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS photo
Cathleen Duly's daughter, Jasmine, 5, can't attend kindergarten
where she went to preschool, in background, because she's biracial.
The school wants whites to achieve a better racial balance.
KEYWORDS: SCHOOL BUSING ROANOKE BIRACIAL by CNB