About Southern school news. (Nashville, Tenn.) 1954-1965 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 3, 1955)
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—Feb. 3. I9SS—PAOE 13 Oak Ridge Continued from Page 12 11 1955, the integration issue at Oak Ridge remained relatively quiet. A UNIQUE CITY In many respects Oak Ridge is unique. Geographically, it is a south ern community, situated in Ander son and Roane counties in Eastern Tennessee. But its similarities to other southern towns are few, if any. Created in secrecy during World War II and destined to become the cradle of atomic energy, Oak Ridge had its doors opened to the general public in 1949, two years after the Atomic Energy Commission assumed control of the atomic development program from the military. Today Oak Ridge, a community of 33,500, continues to be owned and financed completely by the federal government. Atomic research and production account for 16,000 of Oak Ridge’s 28,000 workers. Of the remaining 12,- 000, a little more than half are in construction work. Housekeeping, administrative and other jobs ac count for the remainder. Of the 28,000 working force, only 900 are employes of the AEC. The various facilities of the commission are operated by contractors. The atomic plants, for example, are run by private industry on a cost plus fixed fee basis paid by the govern ment. It is estimated that about half of the workers at Oak Ridge commute. POPULATION STEADY From a wartime peak of 75,000, the population dropped to its current level, a level it has maintained for the past three years. While the economy today, with its overall annual wage of $5,015 per worker, is considered to be steady, there exists a tendency to lay off rather than hire. There is little unemployment at Oak Ridge since a worker unem ployed is given a specified time in which to find employment and if un successful must vacate his home. While every state in the union is represented at Oak Ridge, the domi nant native state is Tennessee. The exact percentage, however, is not known. Oak Ridge contains one of the greatest concentrations of highly trained scientific workers in the country. The education level for all males and females over 25 is 12.5 years. HOW CITY IS GOVERNED At the top of the Oak Ridge gov ernmental pyramid is the AEC in Washington, a part of the executive branch of the federal government. S- R. Sapirie is manager of construc ts®, production, research and com munity affairs at Oak Ridge and in addition directs seven other AEC in stallations which come under Oak Ridge operations. W. Ford, already mentioned, di- re cts the Community Affairs Division, which is divided into two branches, commercial services with Middleton Wootten its head, and city manage ment, directed by Fred Peitzsch. Beneath the Community Affairs tfivision is Management Services Inc., organization contracted with by ABC to run the city, exclusive of the ospital, the buses, the schools and lephones, which are supervised by Pe itzsch. R .^SI, for example, furnishes Oak age’s 37-man police force, which is e Putized by the sheriffs of Roane j*d Anderson counties. The handling Property rentals and building maintenance are also among the MSI 'Unctions. g Roughly, the Commercial Services . r anch supervises the real estate factions of MSI and the City Man- gernent Branch the city administra- n °n and utilities. Bxpected to be introduced in Con- ass early this year is a bill which lts °P°ses the sale of Oak Ridge, minus jj ® tom i c plants and some real estate. er this plan, the residential and r^A^ercial areas will be up for sale Private persons. If the bill passes, tvj there is a strong feeling at Oak f 0 ge that it will, Oak Ridge can look Tp ar< t to becoming an incorporated ““lessee community in two to five * Ridge has a community- r atuxg budget for fiscal 1954-55 of DR. BERTIS E. CAPEHART Oak Ridge Superintendent FRED C. PEITZSCH Oak Ridge ‘City Manager' $9,322,000. Last year, for the first time, Oak Ridge technically ended the year in the black. That is, revenue from commercial and residential property, plus other income, exceeded money paid by the government to run the city. The estimated surplus for fiscal ’55 is $286,000. However, this does not take into consideration the annual loss through plant and equipment de preciation. There are no elected city officials at Oak Ridge. Possibly the closest thing to an elected governmental body is the Advisory Town Council. Established in 1946, it serves as a means by which Oak Ridge residents can make recommendations to AEC. The council is composed of seven members, each elected at large for a two year term. Negroes have served on the council in the past. Dr. Albert Stewart is the present Negro mem ber. SCHOOL SET-UP The Oak Ridge schools are under the supervision of the city manage ment branch of the Community Af fairs Division. School Supt. Cape- hart answers directly to Peitzsch, who is, in a sense, the city manager of Oak Ridge. There is no school board. In its place is the Parents’ Advisory Coun cil, the only organized body which has direct contact with all of O- Ridge’s 12 schools. The council, as its name implies, is purely advisory. Complaints, for example, are chan neled through it to Dr. Capehart, who is employed by the AEC to run Oak Ridge schools. The council is composed of 21 mem bers, one from each of the 12 PTA the nursery school, the PTA Council, the Town Council, and Oak Ridge chapters of the League of Women Voters, the American Association of University Women and the Commu nity Chest, plus three officers who are elected each April by PAC mem bers. There is no set policy for the selec tion of members. Some are appointed to serve by the groups they represent, others are elected. Under consideration now is the formation of a six-member steering committee, which would work within the PAC. Experience has shown that the 21-member council is too large to function with speed and effectiveness. The current school budget for op erating expenses at Oak Ridge, paid by the federal government, is $2,131,- 000. For Jackson and Johnson City, two Tennessee communities of com parable size, the current operating expense budgets are $780,130 and $897,981, respectively. The average current operating cost per pupil in average daily attendance at Oak Ridge is $272 compared to the Tennessese state average of $155. When the schools integrate next fall, there will be nine elementary schools, grades kindergarten through five, two junior high schools, grades six through eight, and one senior high school, grades nine through twelve. For the current school year at Oak Ridge there are 4,542 white and 147 Negro children at the elementary level, 1,647 white and 52 Negro chil dren at the junior high level and 1,674 white and 50 Negro children at the senior high level. SAVINGS EXPECTED It is estimated that integration will save the Oak Ridge school system be tween $15,000 and $20,000 annually. While the Oak Ridge school system voluntarily conforms with standards and procedures established by the Tennessee State Department of Edu cation, it is, in a sense, considered a private school system by state level educators. The Oak Ridge schools were estab lished by a contract, still in existence, with the Anderson County board of education. This enables Oak Ridge teachers to participate in the Tennes see Teachers Retirement System and facilitates the accrediting of Oak Ridge teachers in Tennessee. Technically, contracts for Oak Ridge teachers come from the Ander son County board of education, which acts on the recommendations of School Supt. Capehart, and all op erating expenses are paid for by the Anderson County board, from funds deposited with the county trustee by the AEC. Under the plans to dispose of the city, federal control and support of the schools will decrease as the state and city assume increasing responsi bility for school operation. Both the AFL and the CIO are represented at Oak Ridge, with the former having an estimated 5,000 members and the latter 3,500. There are roughly 400 Negro mem bers of the AFL and approximately 150 in the CIO. They attend meetings with white members. Emerson Pownall, president of local 288, CIO, and Jess I. Hamon, presi dent of the Atomic Trade and Labor Council, AFL, said they doubted if there would be any reaction to inte gration from organized labor. Both pointed to their unions’ nondiscrimi- natory membership policy. NEGRO COMMUNITY The Negro community is located somewhat south of the business and residential districts of Oak Ridge in a fairly isolated area known as Gam ble Valley. The Negroes selected this area in 1948 when their earlier living quar ters, part of the original boom-town housing in Oak Ridge, were tom down. The housing in Gamble Valley is of the same general type found elsewhere at Oak Ridge. Although there is no regulation which prevents a Negro from renting a house in any part of Oak Ridge, Community Affairs Director Ford re ported that there has never been an instance where a Negro has asked to live anywhere but at Gamble Valley. It is anticipated, however, that if the bill to sell Oak Ridge is passed by Congress there will be some Negro families who will seek to buy prop erty outside of Gamble Valley. The bulk of the Negro residents are from Alabama, Mississippi and Geor gia, in that order, with possibly Ten nessee furnishing the fourth largest number. Like many residents of Oak Ridge, the majority are holdovers from workers recruited during the war. Most Negroes perform minor jobs —laborers, maids, janitors, despite being hired on an equal basis with white workers. Only two, a chemist and a biologist, are engaged directly in the atomic development program. While a Negro is on the Advisory Town Council, there is no organized leadership among the Negroes. An NAACP chapter started there a few years ago is no longer in existence. West Virginia CHARLESTON, W. Va. VV7EST VIRGINIA, one of the first T states to permit consolidation of white and Negro schools in some counties, has few plans for additional integration pending further word from the U. S. Supreme Court. The only concrete action taken by its 132-member legislature occurred Jan. 26 when Senate President Ralph Beam appointed a subcommittee to study the state’s colleges and insti tutions to determine whether racial integration will not permit the moth balling of some of them. Named to the committee were Sens. Clarence E. Martin Jr., of Martins- burg in the state’s eastern panhandle section; Lyle Smith of Huntington, the state’s largest city situated in southern Cabell County; Dr. Ward Wiley, a physician of Mullens, center of the large coal mining county of Wyoming; Ted Bowers of New Mar tinsville, in the agricultural county of Wetzel which is rapidly becoming industrialized; and Dr. Raymond Vassar, a dentist from Weston in cen tral Harris County. REPORT SLATED This five-man committee is sched uled to report back before the close of the 60-day session on March 12. In the meantime its study will cover the state. Every one of the nine col leges under the state board of educa tion will be put under the commit tee’s magnifying glass, as well as the mental hospitals, sanitaria and other facilities controlled by the state board of control. It was mentioned informally that Fairmont College will be given spe cial attention as a possible new loca tion for the West Virginia University College of Engineering. Fairmont is only 19 miles from Morgantown where the university is located, and the university has been asking for years to build a new $4.5 million en gineering school. Colored students were enrolled in state-supported white colleges for the first time last fall, and a number of white students also are attending classes at West Virginia State College and Bluefield State College which formerly limited their enrollment to Negroes. Some legislators have discussed in formally the possibility of eliminating one of these schools in an effort to consolidate the state’s educational facilities. Should this occur Bluefield State probably would be dropped since it is situated about 16 miles from Concord State College in Ath ens which has excellent physical fa cilities. West Virginia State is at In stitute, only a few miles from the capital city of Charleston, and serves the useful purpose of providing state- supported facilities in the midst of a highly industrialized coal and chemi cal center. The precedent was set for merging state-supported schools when the West Virginia board of education asked the legislature for the right to close the Negro school for the deaf and blind and maintain only the Romney School for the Deaf and Blind for both races. This action was supported by a report filed by the present superintendents of the two schools recommending the consoli dation. At present there are only 47 stu dents enrolled in the colored institu tion as compared with 309 in the Romney school. NO NEW BILLS YET There was considerable talk before the legislature convened Jan. 12 of legislation which would pave the way for additional integration, but at deadline time for this edition not a single bill out of 102 introduced in the Senate and 174 in the House in the least pertains to integration. It also is extremely doubtful whether the committee appointed by the Senate will recommend any defi nite action to be taken by this legisla ture. What is more likely to happen is a proposal that the matter be given further study pending a final decision by the Supreme Court. Un officially, state officials hold the opinion that since the West Virginia constitution specifically prohibits the mixing of white and colored students in public schools and colleges it would be best to wait and see. Some believe that the Court’s decision would automatically drop the pro hibition from the state constitution although this remains to be deter mined. The legislature will meet in a 30- day regular session next January for the first time in the state’s history under a constitutional change voted last November. This would permit legislators to then make any changes they felt necessary to provide for complete integration. The Negro community, as a whole, appears to be docile and non- aggressive. Bill Scott, the Community Center director at Gamble Valley, explained this condition by pointing to the rela tively small number of professional people—those with at least a high school education, persons who nor mally furnish the leadership in a Negro community. There are a few highly trained persons, he said, but the majority are poorly educated and lack the capacity for leadership. There is evidence, however, of a gradually developing community spirit. The Negro, like his white neighbor, has come to consider Oak Ridge home. RECREATION PROGRAM While the recreation program for the Negro children is as comprehen sive as that followed in white neigh borhoods, there are few adult recrea tional facilities. There is no Negro theatre, for example. The lack of these facilities undoubtedly is one answer why the number of well educated Negroes at Oak Ridge is small. The Negro, like others at Oak Ridge, accepted the integration an nouncement with little comment. Re ported Scott: “They are aware of it. There are some who are glad. But generally, there is complacence.” In 1946, the Scarboro school opened with grades one through eight. High school students were taken daily to a Negro school in Knoxville. Several years later a small kinder garten was added, plus a night school. The next year the ninth grade opened and the school moved to its present site in the Gamble Valley Com munity. As 1950 neared there developed a feeling among some of the white resi dents at Oak Ridge that the Negro high school students being trans ported daily to Knoxville should be taught at home. VOLUNTARY FACULTY After consultation with school of ficials, it was agreed that certain of these people, known as the Volunteer Group, would teach free of charge at the Scarboro school in order to sup plement the small high school teach ing staff which the AEC agreed to furnish. In 1950 the high school, plus a nursery school, opened. Members of the Volunteer Group continued to in struct daytime classes at Scarboro until this year, when they were re placed by regular teachers. They con tinue to teach at the night school, however. The efforts of the Volunteer Group, in a sense, typifies the ties that have developed through the years at Oak Ridge between the white and Negro communities. Since 1945, Negro teachers and school administrators have partici pated with white educators at school workshops, which cover a period of 20 days spread throughout the school year. At these meetings, usually held in the Jefferson junior high school, problems of mutual interest are dis cussed and solved. The Scarboro Student Aid Com mittee, composed of white and Negro members, has been formed to solicit financial help for those Negro stu dents who want to continue their education beyond the high school level but lack the means,
