DMPS School Board Meeting 02/26/2008

The Des Moines Public Schools School Board approved an out-of-district diversity plan at a special meeting on February 26, 2008. There was little discussion and no new issues raised. There were four public speakers, three of whom had spoken at other meetings on their opinions about the plan. One speaker talked about generic technicalities and two spoke about the injustice of including only free- or reduced-price lunch as the definition of minority student. The fourth public speaker was Kevin Dwire who is running for the Iowa House 65th District seat on the Socialist Workers Party ticket. Dwire said segregation is taking place again and that “we know what this re-segregation means because we saw it before, ” i.e., unequal education. He commented that “working people have been beaten back” and “all this hits Blacks the hardest.”

The new diversity plan will operate very similarly to the old desegregation plan. The main difference, on paper, is that the definition of minority student is changing. Open enrollment to any school will still be closed if there is no room in the school. This is in addition to denying open enrollment releases (out of district) or enrollments (into district) based on the balance of minority and non-minority students. March 1 of the spring before the start of the autumn school year start is the deadline for applying for open enrollment. The date for identifying the percentage of minority students in the district will be October 1 of each year. This is the date on which enrollment figures are determined for reporting to the state’s Department of Education.

What the new diversity plan will mean for individual students, families, and the district was a noticeable part of the board discussion. Beth Nigut, general counsel for the district, said that 175 applications for open enrollment for the 2008-2009 school year have been received so far. The number of those applicants that would meet the new definition of minority was a concern for Board Member Jon Narcisse. Because only one student who does not receive subsidized lunches will be permitted to leave for every two students receiving subsidized meals who are released from the district, the percentage of minority students in the 175 applications matters. If two-thirds of the 175 applicants are part of the new minority, then all students may leave the district. However, if only 20 students are in the minority, only 10 non-minority students may leave. Those 10 non-minority students would be selected out of the 155 non-minority applicants by a computer-generated random process. The remaining 145 students would not be permitted to enroll out, unless they move out of the district. There would be similar calculations for determining which and how many students could enroll into the district from their home districts.

Narcisse also asked if non-minority students would be asked to be moved out of their school to a minority-abundent school. Mary Lynne Jones, deputy director of student affairs for DMPS, said it is inaccurate to assume that all requests for open enrollment are from non-minority students. She gave an example of a student who lives on the edge of a district and finds the out-of-district school more convenient to attend.

Board Member Teree Caldwell-Johnson said that she remained uncomfortable with economic status being the only definition of minority. Neither is she comfortable with an in-district definition of minority being significantly different from the out-of-district definition. Board Member Ginny Strong echoed Caldwell-Johnson in saying that she is looking forward the year ahead and a new in-district diversity committee. Board Member Patty Link was unable to attend due to a conflict with events at her children’s school but Board President Dick Murphy read a message from Link after the vote expressing her opinion that plenty had already been said and that she supported the plan. The vote to adopt the diversity plan was 5-1 with Narcisse voting nay.

In other action, the board met in closed session to discuss a personnel matter. The board also approved a $25,000 contract with Hurdles, INC., a business of Kim Carson, a former DMPS student. The Hurdles, INC. child obesity program will be paid for with funding from an Iowa Department of Public Health grant.

M.R. Field covers the school board for AroundDesMoines.com.