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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—Jan. 6, 1955—PAGE II
Missouri
St. Louis Redistricting Plan
New Districts
HERE ARE SHOWN St. Louis high school districts be
fore (left) and after adoption of the racial integration plan
which will go into effect Feb. 1. In each map the shaded
area shows the principal Negro residential section, which
is pushing steadily outward. In the map on the left, the
Map By Frank Krieg
dotted line shows the demarcation between the two dis
tricts served by Negro high schools (Sumner and Vashon).
Solid lines show boundaries of the old districts for the 7
white high schools. New districts and the schools which
will serve them without racial distinctions are at right.
ST. LOUIS, Mo.
HE second phase of racial integra
tion in the St. Louis public
schools will begin Feb. 1, and the city
is taking stock of what the change
will mean in altered educational pat
terns.
With the beginning of the second
semester, the seven white high
schools and two Negro high schools
are to become nine desegregated
schools, each serving a given district
without regard to the racial charac
teristics of students living in the dis
trict. Segregation in the elementary
and technical high schools will end
in September 1955, according to the
board of education’s schedule.
As the accompanying map shows,
the end of official segregation in the
high schools does not mean the im
mediate conversion of all high schools
to interracial student populations in
the same degree. One-third of the
city’s public school pupils are Ne
groes, but it does not follow that all
of the nine high schools will have
one-third Negro occupancy. Because
the Negro population tends to be con
centrated in a belt cutting through
the central and central-northwest
sections of the city, the effects will
vary.
PRESENT SITUATION
At present the city’s two Negro
high schools are heavily overcrowd
ed, each serving a district represent
ing roughly half the total area and
half the Nesro population. Naturally
enough, both of these schools (Sum
ner and Vashon) are located in
densely Negro residential areas. They
will, therefore, remain Negro schools
after integration, since the logical
attendance districts drawn around
them will cover Negro residential
areas almost exclusively.
The main effect upon these two
high schools will be a marked re
duction in overcrowding. They can
be returned to something apuroach-
ing a normal registration while other
high schools, some of which have
been underpopulated, take up the
slack.
The seven presently white high
schools have also been redistricted,
each district shrinking in size by vir
tue of the addition of the two for
merly Negro schools to the total
available for the entire student popu
lation.
Total high school enrollment cur
rently is 14,093, of which 4,275 or 30
per cent are Negroes. The 9,818 white
students are distributed among seven
schools with an average enrollment
of 1,402, while the Negroes attend
two schools (located in three build
ups) with an average enrollment of
2,137. Here are the figures:
WHITE
Beaumont—1,839
Central—1,005
Cleveland—1,473
McKinley—1,184
Roosevelt—1,754
Soldan-Blewett—938
Southwest—1,625
negro
Sumner—1,568; freshman branch
—701; total—2,269
Vashon—2,006
As nearly as board of education of
ficials can estimate, the most drastic
Wunediate change will take place at
Soldan-Blewett, in the western end
°f the city, now the smallest in en
rollment. This school lies directly in
foe path of the principal Negro resi-
ucntial migration now going on.
Whites are moving out and Negroes
“ a ve moved into the district in sub
stantial numbers as the outward
Pressure of the Negro areas has
Readily opened block after block to
e gro occupancy.
Hence Soldan-Blewett, an all-
white school up to Feb. 1, is expected
o " ave 25% or 30% Negro students
^mediately after that date. As the
®gro migration into the district pro-
it may approach a 50-50 ratio
Negro students to whites within a
few years.
^Heaumont high school, which
., rv ' es the northwest section of the
0 j A raay find as many as 10 per cent
student body to be Negroes
^ er integration, for the new Beau-
intn district includes some territory
which Negroes have been mov
ing. Central high school, the city’s
oldest, will probably pick up a Negro
student body of 5% to 10% for the
same reason.
On the South Side, McKinley is
expected to have 10% or 12% Ne
groes. Roosevelt and Cleveland will
have quite small Negro enrollments,
the result of relatively minor Negro
residential enclaves in their districts.
Southwest high school, which serves
the most newly developed neighbor
hoods within the city limits, will have
almost no Negro students at all.
To sum up: in only three of the
seven presently white high schools
is a Negro population of 10% or more
expected to be added immediately
by integration. The other four will
have small Negro accretions or none,
while the two presently Negro
schools remain Negro for all practi
cal purposes.
PATTERN TO CHANGE
As time goes on the pattern will
change. The Negro residential dis
tribution is in flux. As new neighbor
hoods to the west and northwest are
taken over by Negroes, or become
mixed neighborhoods (something
which is rare in St. Louis to date),
the racial composition of the high
school districts will change.
In setting up the new districts,
board of education officials began
with a block-by-block survey, for
which the principal of each school
was responsible. He reported how
many children of elementary and of
high school age lived in each block.
These and other data were trans
ferred to IBM punched cards, one for
each block in the city. The data did
not include the race of the children.
So when the punched cards were run
through sorting machines to deter
mine the proper number for each dis
trict, race was not a primary deter
mining factor in the definition of dis
trict boundaries.
The standards used in drawing the
new district lines began with the ca
pacity of the high school building in
each district. This figure superim
posed upon the potential nearby
school population determined the
first rough boundaries. These were
then adjusted to minimize as far as
possible the distance to be traveled
by all students attending the school,
and finally they were adjusted to
keep the disruption of convenient at
tendance patterns as slight as possi
ble.
Since the race of the students is not
known in detail, it is impossible to
say how many Negroes live in each
high school district. Inevitably, how
ever, the district lines tend in some
degree to follow residential lines. The
most convenient school for a Negro
living in a heavily Negro area is nat
urally a predominantly Negro school.
The board of education officials who
drafted the new districts include Ne
gro administrators who are confident
that the districts represent a non-
racial solution of the problem.
OPTION PROVIDED
At the start, provided no serious
overcrowding results, students al
ready attending any high school will
be permitted to continue attending
that school until graduation, if they
wish. All new students coming into
high school from the elementary
grades, however, will be required to
attend the school in the district where
they live. The question of how many
will exercise the option to attend a
school outside their home districts
lends some uncertainty to the poten
tial enrollment in each school.
Boundaries of the new districts
were published Nov. 12, two and a
half months before they become ef
fective, in order to give parents and
students plenty of time to adjust to
them. Few complaints have been re
ported. There has been no open sign
of any significant opposition to high
school integration.
Apart from general intergroup re
lations programs which have been
conducted in the St. Louis school sys
tem for some years, no concerted
preparatory program is being im
posed on the system as a whole.
Principals of each high school have
been urged to anticipate and meet
the problems of each district in their
own way. The board of education and
the administrative staff of the system
have made it clear, however, that in
tegration is a fixed policy to be fol
lowed firmly according to the sched
ule laid down last summer.
WORKSHOPS HELD
In observance of Human Rights
Day on Dec. 10, the St. Louis Council
on Human Relations turned its an
nual institute into a day of work
shops on school integration. The ses
sions were held at Kiel Auditorium,
the city’s largest downtown conven
tion hall.
Five workshops composed of ad
ministrators in elementary and high
schools, parent groups and school
counselors undertook to provide
guidance for an orderly transition to
desegregation.
Herbert K. Walther, chairman of
the department of teacher education,
University of Denver, told the gen
eral session that high school students
can survive bad teaching and inade
quate facilities, but should not “be
deprived of a wholesome social cli
mate” to which minority groups, par
ents and instructors all contribute.
If schools do a good job in elim
inating discrimination, parent groups
need not worry about community
integration, said another speaker,
Daniel Dodson, professor of educa
tional sociology at New York Univer
sity.
Speaking from experience, Clifford
Bassfield, Negro principal in East St.
Louis, Ill., told the group that prob
lems of assignments of teachers to
mixed schools and of students to
seats in clasrooms will be the most
difficult to face.
Counselors were told by Miss Mary
Corre, director of guidance for Cin
cinnati public schools, that their job
is to help develop in children, teach
ers and parents the idea that integra
tion will succeed.
YOUTH GROUPS MEET
Another preparatory effort, this
one addressed to high school stu
dents, is being carried out by the In
tergroup Youth Movement, sponsored
by the National Conference of Chris
tians and Jews. With cooperation of
teachers and community leaders, but
primarily under the direction of high
school youth themselves, representa
tives of public, parochial and private
high schools in the city and sur
rounding suburban area gather
weekly to thresh out problems aris
ing from integration.
Discussions are informal and unin
hibited. Those who attend the com
munity-wide meetings report back to
their individual school groups. In va
rious schools, human relations clubs
have been set up. Panel discussions,
student assemblies, addresses by
well-known speakers, exchange
meetings with other schools, all help
to accustom the participants to inter
group activity and to frank discussion
of their problems.
One question which is holding the
attention of the intergroup sessions is
the incompatibility of school integra
tion with segregation in theatres, res
taurants and hotels. When school
friends of different races want to at
tend a movie or lunch together, they
may find that the discrimination
which is being ended in the school
still is practiced in other public
places. What to do about it is a ques
tion frequently asked.
The National Council of Christians
and Jews further expressed its inter
est in school integration by paying
tribute Dec. 10 to both parochial and
public schools in St. Louis for lead
ership in that direction.
Arthur H. Compton, former chan
cellor of Washington University and
now distinguished professor of nat
ural philosophy there, presented
scrolls to Catholic school officials in
honor of their ending of segregation
in 1948. Superintendent of Instruction
Philip J. Hickey of the public school
system gave citations to representa
tives of seven public schools which
pioneered in intergroup education.
ECONOMIC STUDY
The integration of high schools
finds St. Louis Negroes definitely im
proving in general status in the com
munity. A recent study by two
Washington University economists
and the St. Louis Urban League
found “most encouraging” advances
in Negroes’ educational attainment
and average income here. With the
possible exception of the best-edu
cated individuals, the survey con
cluded, however, that Negroes in
general still had not attained by the
end of 1953 the economic position at
tained by whites in 1950.
Negroes have been upgraded in
numerous job categories in recent
years, the study reported. Negroes
aged 20 to 29 were found to have
achieved a much higher occupational
and industrial status than those in
higher age classifications. About
three out of every five Negroes aged
20 to 29 work in the six top ranking
occupational categories, as contrasted
with an average of less than three out
of eight in the same categories among
older groups.
The University of Missouri at Co
lumbia ended all racial restrictions
on admissions soon after the Supreme
Court decision in the public school
cases last summer. The only problem
so far encountered, according to Act
ing President Elmer Ellis, is some
fear that discussing integration as “a
problem” might create one.
Negroes were first admitted to the
University in September 1950 on or
der of Circuit Judge Sam Bair. These
were students who wished to enroll
for courses not available at Lincoln
University (Negro) in Jefferson City.
Graduate students and undergrad
uates as well came in under this plan,
but the rule was that if Lincoln Uni
versity offered a certain course
equivalent to that offered at the Uni
versity (as decided in conference be
tween Missouri and Lincoln Univer
sity officials), then Negroes were ex
pected to attend there. This is the
rule that was abrogated in favor of
complete integration last summer.
As a matter of principle, the Uni
versity does not record on its books
anything regarding the race of a stu
dent. So it is not known how many
Negroes are attending. Acting Presi
dent Ellis says “we obviously have
considerably more than we had a year
ago,” but estimates of enrollment of
ficials and student counselors vary
markedly. The Negro students en
gage in all university activities. They
live in the regular dormitories, eat in
the cafeterias, make use of the Union
building, hold university scholar-
shros. One is on the freshman foot
ball squad, others are in ROTC units
and musical organizations. Negro
parents participated in Parents Day
events.
The general feeling at the Univer
sity, says Dr. Ellis, is that the smooth
adjustment will continue as Negro
numbers increase.