More than 30 years after Pasadena schools began busing students to comply with a federal desegregation order, the new superintendent has designed a plan to eliminate what he calls busing's "dated structure" in the troubled district.
Declaring his intention to end busing over the next five years, Supt. Percy Clark Jr. has been working to redraw the district's school attendance zones, a vestige of 1970s integration efforts.
"We are busing students without any intended consequence," he said. The 23,500-student district is 85% nonwhite, yet 2,300 students are bused to schools outside their neighborhoods.
"At one time, [busing] was centered around desegregation--that if we would bring black and white youngsters together, something would happen educationally. And that hasn't happened," Clark said.
Next month, the Pasadena Board of Education will vote on the "Creating Quality Schools Initiative," which includes redistricting--the redrawing of school attendance zones to create neighborhood schools.
The plan calls for reopening closed campuses, changing grade configurations at some schools and creating more magnet programs. There also are plans to build another elementary school in the district's northwest area, where half of the student population is concentrated.
But for some in the community, the proposal raises fears that an end to busing will bring the return of a racially segregated district.
"It basically means that the conservatives have won the battle to keep black kids and white kids from going to the same school," said Joe Hopkins, publisher of the black newspaper Pasadena Journal.
"We already tried neighborhood schools. It was called segregation," said Maurice Morse, a 39-year veteran of the district who was called as a witness in the 1969 desegregation case that brought busing to the city's schoolchildren.
Morse taught in one of the district's first integrated classrooms. But as hard as she fought for integration, she now reluctantly admits that "busing was a failure."
Board members are hoping to find a solution that will address community concerns.
"We are trying to raise the bar at all schools in the district," said board member Peter Soelter. "We want to have an excellent school in every neighborhood."
Clark is just the man to lead the district in its efforts, Soelter said.
"He was chosen by a 7-0 vote," he said. "I think that's a pretty clear mandate for moving forward."
