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PAGE 10—April 7, 1955—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS Missouri ST. LOUIS, Mo. jyjISSOURI ’S second largest city, both in population and in Negro student enrollment, took action in March to complete the racial integra tion of its school system at the open ing of the term next September. Kansas City, with a population of 456,000 and a Negro school enroll ment of about 10,000 in a total of 60,000, responded to the Supreme Court decision last year by immedi ately combining its two junior col leges and its two vocational high schools. Announcement was made at that time (July 1954) that secondary and elementary schols would be in tegrated at the start of the 1955-56 school year. Early in March the board of edu cation approved the plan of Supt. Mark W. Bills for putting the latter MARK W. BILLS Kansas City Superintendent decision into effect. The plan includes new school maps setting forth re vised districts for both elementary and secondary schools. The new high school districts are shown on the map on this page. Heretofore Kansas City has had nine high and junior high schools for white pupils, and one high school for all Negroes in the city. Voca tional courses for Negroes have been given at a combined vocational-jun ior high for Negroes. Vocational pu pils from the latter school have al ready been transferred to Manual High and Vocational School, which is now racially integrated with Ne groes slightly outnumbering whites. EXPECTED RESULTS The integration plan taking effect next September is expected to mean that one formerly white high school will have a Negro minority of about 10 per cent; the formerly Negro high school will have a white minority of about the same size; four formerly white schools will have small Negro enrollments; and four schools will remain substantially all-white. Here are the anticipated enrollment fig ures: School White Negro Total Central High & Junior 2813 278 3091 East High 1625 50 1675 Lincoln High & Coles Junior 283 2074 2357 Manual High & Vocl. 720 916 1636 Northeast High 1753 1753 Paseo High 1671 17 1688 Southeast High 1575 1575 Southwest High 2031 2031 Westport High 1474 15 1489 Northeast Junior 1936 1936 West Junior 604 46 650 Total 16,485 3396 19,881 At the elementary level, one school is expected to remain all-Negro, 33 will have a mixed enrollment, and 41 will remain all-white. Of the mixed schools, 11 will probably have a Negro majority and 22 will have a white majority. ENROLLMENT FIGURES Where Negroes predominate, they are expected to number between 68 and 100 per cent of the school enrollment. Where the majority is white, the Negro minority will prob ably be less than 30 per cent in most cases. In two of the white-majority grade schools, the Negro enrollment is estimated to run between 30 and 50 per cent. In half of these schools, on the other hand, the Negro minor ity will be fractional—less than 1 per cent. The high school map reproduced herewith shows several “neutral” areas from which students may at tend their choice of two or more high schools. Supt. Bills says there is no relationship between the “neu tral” areas and the residence of Ne gro pupils. These areas have devel oped over a period of years in rela tion to space in the high school buildings. TRANSFER POLICY Kansas City has had a long-stand ing policy of granting transfers from one school district to another upon parental request, the liberality of the policy at any time depending upon the space available in the re quested building. This policy is to be continued, but according to Supt. Bills will be administered without regard to racial distinctions. No transfers will be issued to schools where, in the judgment of the super intendent, the capacity of the build ing has been reached. Under the policy laid down by the board of education, schools will be classified as closed, critical, or open, according to the relationship of their physical capacity to the enrollment. Prior claims to any school’s space will always be reserved to pupils living within the district. Then the available classroom space will be multiplied by the recommended class size, to determine the capacity of each school. When the capacity is equaled or exceeded by the enrollment, the school will be declared closed. When enrollment comes within one class unit of capacity, the school will be designated as critical, and transfers to it will be issued only for limited reasons, such as the student’s health, special circumstances of the parents’ employment, completion of the final grade in a school previously at tended, etc. All other schools will be classified as open, and transfers will be granted on request so long as they retain that status. In the high schools, transfers to open or critical schools will be per mitted only when certain conditions apply. These are: to pursue courses of study not offered in the resident district; to take advantage of more convenient transportation; to com plete the senior year or part of any year where the pupil was previously enrolled; to avoid perilous traffic sit uations; to make for better pupil ad justment; to permit continuation in the junior high school. CAUTION URGED The board of education was ad vised by its counsel, Robert S. Eastin, that great care must be taken in handling transfers. He said: “In its practical operation, the transfer policy should not be used for the purpose of discrimination. Two things must be avoided: (a) forcing a pupil, resident in a district, to make a transfer; and (b) giving any preference to pupils of either race in connection with transfers.” Speaking more broadly, Mr. Eastin advised the board: “The sum and substance of the desegregation rule is simply that from and after the adoption of a desegregation policy, no distinction may be made between pupils by reason of their color. The board still has the right to assign pupils to schools based upon every consideration which has heretofore been given weight, other than that of color. In other words, the board can still require pupil A to go to one school and pupil B to go to another if there is some reason for so doing other than the fact that one is white and the other a Negro. “The test of desegregation is not what is put on paper but the actual working of the system. A court may find that the program adopted by the board is satisfactory but that the ad ministration of it is discriminatory. Emphasis must be placed upon this factor particularly at the level where contact is made with pupils and par ents, i.e., among the principals of the elementary and high schools in volved.” DEBATABLE QUESTION Mr. Eastin said the most debatable matter with respect to transfers was the board’s statement that “every favorable consideration shall be giv en to requests for pupils to remain in schools last attended.” He pointed out that in the case of a white student who had been re districted into a predominantly Ne gro school, this policy would mean that the pupil could continue to at tend his old school, predominantly white, unless it was fully occupied. On the other hand, a white pupil who remained in the same district before and after integration might not have the same claim to “favorable con sideration” of a transfer request even though his district, in its new form, might include a heavy Negro popula tion. Mr. Eastin concluded that the transfer policy would be legally de fensible provided that it was impar tially administered, with no discrim ination of any sort and no evidence that race played any part in the de cisions. Most changes in elementary dis tricts will take place in the northern one-third of the city’s area, where the bulk of the Negro population re sides. Most of the new districts in that section will be smaller than be fore, and many pupils will attend schools closer to their homes. FACULTY INTEGRATION In respect to placement of teach ers and principals, the board re affirmed its legal right to assign teachers and other personnel to posi tions “so as to serve the best inter ests of children.” Supt. Bills said no teacher will lose his job. Since learn ing and educational results are de- cidely determined by the quality and permanence of each school’s staff, the board said, any changes would be kept to a minimum. Where additions in staff are re quired by increased enrollments, each school situation will be handled separately. “The present personnel practice of attempting to match the abilities and skills of employees to the particular characteristics and de mands of the job will remain un changed,” the board announced. Under established rules, the su perintendent is required to “preserve as far as possible an equal degree of excellence in the different schools of the city,” and to transfer teachers from time to time when necessary to accomplish that purpose. Until now there have been sepa rate programs of competitive ath letics for high school students, the Negro schools scheduling games only with schools outside of Kansas City. The board declared all high schools henceforth will belong to the same league. It further said: “All activities of a district-wide nature, whether they be athletic, forensic, musical or of any other kind, shall be open to all pupils.” ST. LOUIS INCIDENT In St. Louis, where the high schools were integrated Feb. 1 and elemen tary schools are to be integrated next September, one incident of racial friction occurred at Beaumont high school a month after 100 Negro stu dents joined the white enrollment of 1,839. Beaumont serves the North St. Louis area where racial tensions erupted in a brief riot when a muni cipal swimming pool was opened to Negroes in 1949. The trouble began when a white boy squirted water on a Negro girl with a water pistol. “There were probably only two students in the whole high school who could have caused an incident like this,” said one teacher. “The boy was a 19-year-old ‘tough guy’ whose level of development is well indi cated by the fact that at 19 he carries a water pistol. He had squirted plenty of white girls before. He probably could have squirted plenty of Negro girls with less troublesome results. This particular girl carried a chip on her shoulder. She went home and aired her grievance for the benefit of family and friends.” Next day, six Negro youths sur rounded a car in which was riding a white boy, said to be a buddy of the water-pistol-toter. Taunts and insults led to dares to fight, the white boy got out of the car, and was shortly on the way to a hospital for treatment of a scalp wound and cut shoulder. Feelings mounted. In one clash in a school corridor, both white and Negro youths drew knives, but did KANSAS CITY REDISTRICTING PLAN NORTHEAST NORTH EAST, JR. MANUAL BEAST CENTRAL* BCENTRAI JR. I >WESTP0RT PASEO E SOUTHEAST SOUTHWEST Map by Frank Kreig HERE ARE SHOWN the new high school districts for Kansas City, Mo, approved by the board of education to complete integration with the start of the school year next September. Lightly shaded areas show the principal Negro residential districts. Heavily shaded areas are those in which students have the option of attending either of two or more high schools. According to school authorities, the “optional” areas continue a practice of the past and are not related to problems of integration. Generally students will be expected to attend schools in the districts where they live, as in the past, but a liberal transfer policy will be followed where school building capacities permit. not use them. A white pupil reported that a rock thrown by one of a group of Negro students struck his auto mobile, denting the side. STUDENT ASSEMBLY At this point, two days after the initial incident, Superintendent of Instruction Philip J. Hickey and his aides went to the high school to address a special assembly, called at the request of the Student Council. There was generous applause from students and only a murmur of dis sent when Hickey said the water- squirting incident occurred because “a white boy did not display good citizenship.” Dissenting students felt that the Negro girl also had erred by building up the incident too much. Hickey called the white boy’s be havior “kindergarten stuff.” He said he was convinced that the Negroes who had assaulted the white boy in a car were non-students “who stuck their noses into insiders’ business.” He told the assembly: “We will take care of those outsiders if you will take care of the insiders.” The basketball coach and 14 mem bers of the team, then playing in the state tournament, appeared on the stage and appealed for cooperation in solving the problem. Other speak ers were Principal Gammeter, R. M. Inbody, city director of secondary education, and two student leaders who called on their fellow students to “settle this matter maturely, not like five-year olds.” Students returned to class after the assembly. At noon recess, about 200 white students, most of them older boys, assembled on the athletic field and demonstrated for 15 min utes, chanting “Let’s go home.” Teachers appeared with warnings that the demonstrators would be marked absent unless they returned to class. All of them returned. No more demonstrations occurred. On the following day, Beaumont returned to normal, though absences were reported to be 50 to 60 more than usual. Policemen patrolled the school and the neighborhood. NO FURTHER INCIDENTS Four weeks after the incident teachers reported that it had app ar ‘ ently been forgotten by all con cerned. Mixed classes at Beaumont, a s at other St. Louis high schools, are be ing successfully conducted eve. day, and the great majority of dents of both races are getting ak*' amicably, say the school officials. Asked whether any differences academic standards have been 0 served, one Beaumont English teac er said there seemed to be among Negro pupils a wider spread betw the best and the worst than am°^ whites. He attributed part of this ^ the difficulties of adjusting to a s school situation. He found the Negro students to be the eq 1 the best white ones. uai c ' CARMICHAEL SPEAKS a St. Louis was host in March ^ regional meeting of the Ame Association of School Administra ^ Addressing a clinic on problems | integration, Supt. Omer Carrmc of the Louisville (Ky.) school ^ declared that boards of educate many sections of the country are _ c . facing up to the problem of de se , w gating schools in accordance Supreme Court decision. with 4 * 0 ui “We’ve been contending i j » r.Arm ic rights to be leaders,” C arm ' e jb< said, “and now we’ve got to ta leadership when the going is t0 . ca lK Emphasizing his own ‘ 4 ' . ^ southern” background, Carrm ^ said Louisville school offic'ia s See MISSOURI on Next Pa«