Schools Vow to Advance Diversity

Some Blacks Question Officials' Commitment

By Kameel Stanley

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Fourteen years after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, white and black children in Loudoun County were still attending separate schools.

It took a federal lawsuit against school officials and then-Superintendent Clarence Bussinger being threatened with jail time before schools were fully integrated in 1968.

Forty years later, more than 30 percent of the 54,047 students in Loudoun schools are minorities, according to 2007-08 figures.

Yet at a time when many acknowledge the district's progress in promoting diversity and equity, concerns persist among some in the black community over issues such as the achievement gap between white and minority students, the underrepresentation of students of color in college-level courses and the relative lack of diversity among school employees.

And with the start of the school year last week, some parents and community activists said they fear that recent staff changes could slow the momentum that has taken four decades to build.

"There are individuals who want to do the right thing," said Pam Taggart, a member of the Loudoun NAACP's education committee. "I question the commitment of the School Board and the administration."

School Board Chairman Robert F. DuPree Jr. (Dulles) said the district has made great progress and that its commitment to diversity is evident.

This is the first year that the Loudoun district as a whole met federal benchmarks under the No Child Left Behind law, a result that included gains by minority students, DuPree said.

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A photograph of a page from the 1968 Loudoun County High School yearbook, the first year the school system was desegregated. (Kameel Stanley)

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Larry Sims gets ready to begin his day at Park View High School in Sterling. He's been with the district for 38 years, and as one of the early black students in Loudoun, brings a unique perspective to his teaching. (Michael Williamson)

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Larry Simms has been a teacher at Park View High School for 38 years. (Michael Williamson)

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Larry Simms, a teacher at Park View High School, chats with history teacher Jen Zecher as they prepare their classes for the start of school. Simms has been a teacher at Park View for 38 years. (Michael Williamson)

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Larry Simms looks out over the courtyard at Park View that was a smoking area for students in the 1970s. Now there's no smoking anywhere on campus. Simms has been at Park View for 38 years, and as one of the early black students in Loudoun, brings a unique perspective to his teaching. (Michael Williamson)

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"This is something we take very seriously," he said. "The School Board and the administration are fully committed on all fronts. It's a commitment that does not waver."

Mary Randolph, 64, remembers her oldest daughter's first day of school in fall 1968.

She cried.

But she didn't want her daughter to be affected by those emotions. So that morning, Randolph did not tell 6-year-old Lisa what to expect. She did not warn her daughter that when she got to school, she would be one of only two black children in her first-grade class at Douglass Elementary.

"I just put her on the bus and that was it," Randolph said. "I did not want to put my prejudice on her. We didn't want to make an issue of it. ...I just knew it was about time."

Larry Simms, a government teacher and former basketball coach at Park View High in Sterling, was one of a few black students who transferred from the all-black Douglass High School to Loudoun Valley High in 1962, under a state policy that allowed black students who wanted to enroll at white schools to seek special permission. Many say they think that these students made the later transition easier.

"Not that they had open arms, but at the same time, there weren't a lot of protests," Simms said. "I don't ever remember having a day where I didn't want to go back."

Simms, 59, returned to Loudoun in 1970 after college and was one of a handful of blacks who got jobs with the district. For 38 years, he has had a front-row seat to observe changes in the school system.

"Loudoun County has changed so much in the last 10 years in terms of diversity. The influx of different groups of people has really made an impact on the school system," he said.

Loudoun, like most school systems, continues to struggle with achievement disparities between racial groups. The problem is complicated by language barriers and socioeconomic issues.

In 1993, the Loudoun NAACP issued a report highlighting disparities in the academic achievement of minority and white students. The following year, the district formed the Student Achievement Committee, later renamed the Minority Student Achievement Advisory Committee.

Sharon Ackerman, assistant superintendent for instruction, came to Loudoun in 1972 as an elementary school teacher and has been at the forefront of the district's diversity and equity efforts since the late 1990s.

"The main difference now is that we're paying attention to" diversity, Ackerman said. "We have really worked the last 10 years to focus on access and opportunity. We're trying to elevate all kids."

This fall, at the request of the NAACP and the advisory committee, the school system instituted equity and diversity training for all staff members.

The district increased participation in Advanced Placement classes, which can help standardized test scores and college readiness. According to statistics from last year, the rate of enrollment for black students in the AP program increased from 17 percent to 32 percent over four years, and the rate for Hispanic students rose from 16 percent to 24 percent. White students' participation increased from 37 percent to 56 percent.

But the Rev. Reginald A. Early, president of the Loudoun NAACP, said the district needs to do more to close the achievement gap and work harder to ensure that minority staffing mirrors the student population.

White students made up 67 percent of the student population in the 2007-08 school year, the most recent data available. Black students accounted for about 8 percent, Hispanics 12 percent and Asians 11 percent; fewer than 1 percent were Native American.

About 92 percent of the school system's licensed employees are white. Blacks make up about 4 percent and Hispanics and Asians 2 percent each.

Dupree acknowledged that there is more to be done but said that the School Board has made recruiting minority employees a priority. "Our school system is diverse, and our challenge is meeting the needs of every child," he said. "It's a challenge, but we're committed to that."

Superintendent Edgar B. Hatrick III said he wants to continue taking the district in a direction where racial and ethnic differences are not considered barriers.

"The children in school today are going to live in a very small world," Hatrick said. "We, as educators, have a real responsibility to enable cultural understanding. Diversity is the way to do that."

Schools officials pointed to results from this year's Standards of Learning exams, released last month, as indicators of progress in closing the achievement gap.

Black students passed the 2008 English SOL at a rate of 84 percent, up from 80 percent last year and the three-year average of 79 percent. In math, the passing rate for black students rose to 75 percent, up from 71 percent last year.

The English SOL pass rate for Hispanic students was 81 percent, up from 74 percent; math pass rate was 75 percent, compared to 69 percent last year.

The English pass rate for white students was 95 percent, compared to 94 percent last year. In math, their pass rate was 91 percent, up from 86 percent.

"I'm really pleased with the progress we have made on that, but we haven't licked it yet," Ackerman said.

Earlier this year, school officials came under fire from minority activists for not renewing the contract of Beverly Bennett-Roberts, the district's outreach supervisor. Her job involved reaching out to parent advisory groups, coordinating parent volunteers and working with principals and schools to develop equity teams.

Nearly two dozen people representing a variety of groups, along with many parents, spoke out against the decision, saying Bennett-Roberts had been an advocate for those who felt they had no voice. But a school system evaluation she received last winter questioned her loyalty and said her performance was unsatisfactory.

The district has hired a replacement, but Early of the NAACP said that anger and disappointment linger.

He said the School Board's recent decision to change the structure of the advisory committee has exacerbated the situation and shows that some school administrators are determined to maintain the status quo.

The new bylaws, which take effect this fall, require that the committee consist of one representative from each school in the system and that the representative be chosen by the school's parent group. None of the current committee members has children in the school system.

Early said the changes were the district's effort to "clean house."

"I really think there is no general interest in improving things in terms of diversity," he said.

The change in bylaws excludes people — many of them community volunteers, minority professionals and representatives of cultural groups — who have been part of the progress the district has made, said Taggart, who has been a member of the committee since it was formed.

"It would be so much smarter ... to bring in all the stakeholders," she said.

School Board members said the new rules will increase parent participation.

Ackerman said: "All these meetings are public, so there's no way that anyone is shut out."

Hatrick said that things are not perfect but that assigning blame is unproductive.

"At the end of the day, it doesn't move anybody in terms of progress to point the finger and blame," he said. "The key is talking and working together."

Tagged: Loudoun County High School, Loudoun County Public Schools, Park View High School, schools, segregation

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