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PAGE 4—MAY, 1965—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
NORTH CAROLINA
New Winston-Salem Assignment
Policy Uses Freedom-of-Choice
WINSTON-SALEM
he Winston - SALEM/Forsyth
County school system ap
proved a completely revised pu
pil assignment program at its
April 29 meeting.
The plan, admittedly designed to
meet qualifications for federal approval
under the Civil Rights Act, features a
geographical assignment policy with a
“freedom-of-choice” privilege. Elemen
tary school students are assigned on a
neighborhood basis. High schools and
junior high schools receive their pupils
from lower schools under a feeder sys
tem.
This in general was included in the
previous program with one big excep
tion—the all-Negro Carver elementary,
junior high and high schools, all located
in one plant. In the old Forsyth County
system under segregation, Carver was
built as a consolidated school for Ne
gro children of the county. Bus trans
portation was provided, with some chil
dren traveling as much as 40 miles a
day.
Under terms of the agreement to
consolidate, Carver remained a school
with no geographical district, even
after first-graders were assigned in
September, 1964, to geographical dis
tricts. Most first-graders assigned to
county community schools chose to at
tend Carver.
Carver students still living outside
the geographical district will have a
choice of remaining at Carver with free
school bus transportation or attending
the school in their geographical area.
Otherwise, new rules do not permit the
busing of students from one district to
another. A student attending a school
outside his district may ride a bus to
his school if he is picked up at a regu
lar school bus stop.
Added Feature
An added feature of the freedom-of-
choice reassignment policy is that pu
pils may return requests for transfer
to the schools rather than to the cen
tral office, a requirement under the old
policy. The students requesting reas
signment do not have to give a reason
either. Those who do cite as a reason
the desire to take a subject not avail
able at the geographical school will be
given top priority for transfer.
The new policy also sets a rated ca
pacity for each school. Except for
pupils geographically assigned, a school
will not be permitted to accept students
beyond its rated capacity.
Richard C. Erwin, a Negro member
of the school board, questioned the
Carver policy. Marvin Ward, school
superintendent, said the Carver policy
“cannot continue to exist over a long
period of time.”
In reference to desegregation of the
central office and administrative staff,
the school board noted that the central
office staff began desegregation 12 years
ago. It also accepted desegregation of
staff and faculties. The board said it
was “working toward ultimate employ
ment of all persons on factors such as
competence, training and experience.”
Past Progress
In addition to its proposal for civil
rights compliance, the school board re
viewed its past progress in desegrega
tion and gave statistics of its present
status.
The then independent Winston-Salem
school board desegregated its schools
in 1957 as one of North Carolina’s first
three desegregated school systems. The
city and Forsyth County systems
merged in 1963. Today 15 of the Win-
ston-Salem-Forsyth County system’s
68 school units are desegregated.
Of 46 members of the central office
administrative and supervisory staff,
39 are white, and seven are Negro. Two
of 10 special reading teachers and two
of 10 special speech teachers are Negro.
General faculty meetings, principals
meetings, supervisory staff meetings,
curriculum study committees and ad
visory council meetings are all deseg
regated. The school board includes
three Negroes and eight whites.
One school in the system, Hanes
Junior High, has biracial faculty of
12 whites and seven Negroes for a stu
dent body of 127 whites and 220
Negroes. This school was all-white dur
ing the 1963-64 school year.
“It is our practice to place all faculty
members in the position which we be
lieve they can be most effective,” the
school board said.
North Carolina Highlights
The Winston-Salem and Forsyth
County Board of Education ap
proved a revised pupil and teacher
assignment policy to submit to the
U.S. Office of Education as its com
pliance program with the Civil
Rights Act.
The Craven County school system
became the first in North Carolina to
have its civil rights compliance re
port accepted by the federal govern
ment.
A resolution calling for employ
ment of faculty and administrative
personnel without regard to race was
passed by the Charlotte-Mecklen-
burg Board of Education.
Kelly Alexander, state NAACP
president, led a delegation of 110
chapter leaders meeting with Gov.
Dan K. Moore. The group demanded
full desegregation of schools in the
state.
★ ★ ★
The Craven County school system
became the first North Carolina school
system to have its desegregation plan
approved by the U.S. Office of Educa
tion, it was announced April 27.
Craven County is located near the
Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Base in
the eastern part of the state. Schools
have been desegregated since 1959. The
area has received federal aid through
the years because of the Marine base.
Provisions of the plan:
• Parents are free until May 15 to
designate what school they want their
children to attend.
• The school board will assign chil
dren on a first-come-first-served basis
to schools until schools are filled.
• Children at overcrowded schools
will be reassigned by the school board,
but race, color or national origin will
not be a factor.
• Children whose parents do not re
quest transfers by May 15 will be as
signed to present schools, but will have
until June 12 to request reassignment.
★ ★ ★
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board on
April 13 approved a resolution calling
for the “ultimate employment and as
signment of all staff and professional
personnel without regard to race or to
factors other than training, competence
and fitness.”
This action “simply recognizes what
we’ve been planning all along,” David
Harris, board chairman,, said. “This has
been in our long-range plans all along,”
he said. “We feel it is the just and
right thing to do.”
In the Colleges
A group of 30 students of various
races and nationalities and four faculty
members from the University of Wis
consin spent a week, April 18-25, in
North Carolina to study conditions of
Negroes in the South. (The group also
visited Virginia.)
Their trip, called Project Under
standing, was financed by the Johnson
Foundation (of the Johnson Wax Co.)
and the North Carolina Fund. They be
gan their stay in Durham, headquarters
of the North Carolina Fund, living on
the campus of North Carolina College,
a predominantly Negro school. They
were then divided into three groups,
one staying at NCC, a second at Shaw
University in Raleigh and the other at
Winston-Salem College in Winston-
Salem, all predominantly Negro in
stitutions.
In Durham, the visitors heard reports
on race relations in North Carolina
from such people as Floyd McKissick,
national chairman of CORE (Congress
of Racial Equality); George H. Esser
Jr., executive director of the North
Carolina Fund; David Coltrane, director
of the Good Neighbor Council; Dr. Wil
liam Darity, director of program de
velopment for the North Carolina
Fund, and others.
Currently, two white teachers are
working in two predominantly Negro
schools. When this step was taken in
January, Dr. A. Craig Phillips, super
intendent of schools, said, “White
teachers will be more and more inte
grated into former Negro faciliites, and
Negro teachers will be integrated into
white facilities.”
No major changes are expected in
the fall, Harris said.
★ ★ ★
Dr. Charles F. Carroll, state super
intendent of public instruction, recom
mended a three-point program to the
state’s 170 school systems in a two-day
series of four meetings April 8 and 9.
He advised school units to:
• Submit a statement of the present
status of the school system in regard
to school organization and school as
signments.
• Set up a plan that calls for either
freedom of choice or geographical as
signment. An alternative would be a
court order.
• Provide a program for employment
and assignment of professional workers
based on such factors as competence,
training and experience, and not on
race.
“You and I have a dual responsibility
here—to comply with the Civil Rights
Act as it affects education in North
Carolina and to promote the best school
system of which we are capable,” Car-
roll said.
“We must do our best to comply with
this law and approach it with a com
mon-sense application.”
In appearances before the Joint Ed
ucation Committee of the state legis
lature, Carroll recommended passage
of a law permitting school boards to
operate their systems as one mass
school district, permitting a freedom-
of-choice setup. Such action, he said,
would give school units more flexibility
in compliance with the Civil Rights Act.
★ ★ ★
The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County
Board of Education approved an anti
poverty program for an experiment in
kindergartens April 28. There are no
public-school kindergarten classes of
fered in North Carolina.
Called Project Head Start, the pro
gram was suggested by the Experiment
in Self-Reliance Inc. in co-operation
with school officials. The Experiment in
Self-Reliance is set up to co-ordinate
and plan all Winston-Salem activities
in the area of anti-poverty activities.
Under this project, if it is approved
by the federal government, Mrs.
Dorothy Unthank, a Negro supervisor,
would be director. Her assistant di
rector would be Leslie Holloway. The
program would involve 500 children in
six schools.
The city seeks $48,500 from the fed
eral grant.
The delegation chose North Carolina
because “we felt that this state would
give us the freedom to meet Negroes
and to tackle the civil rights issue ob
jectively.” On the campuses, visitors
stayed up late at nights in free con
versations with students on the racial
situation in the South.
The group agreed that one week was
not long enough to study race relations
in North Carolina, but said it offered
them some thoughts. A basic thought
was that inferior schools are stifling
the Negro potential. The visitors also
indicated that race relations appear to
be improving and are better in the
South than they expected.
★ ★ ★
A cross was burned on the campus
of Catawba College, and a kerosene-
filled bottle was thrown on the porch
of a white professor at the predom
inantly Negro Livingstone College
April 15.
Livingstone and Catawba, a pre
dominantly white college, are co-op
erating in a class and student exchange
program.
The bottle was thrown near the home
of Prof. Roy Valencourt who has
worked in the civil rights movement.
Student Group Studying South
Visits Three Negro Colleges
Southern School News
Southern School News is the official publication of the Southern Education
Reporting Service, an objective, fact-finding agency established by Southern
newspaper editors and educators with the aim of providing accurate, unbiased
information to school administrators, public officials and interested lay citizens
on developments in education arising from the U.S. Supreme Court opinion of
May 17, 1954, declaring compulsory segregation in the public schools unconsti
tutional. SERS is not an advocate, is neither pro-segregation nor anti-segregation,
but simply reports the facts as it finds them, state-by-state.
Published monthly by Southern Education Reporting Service at 1109 19th Ave.,
South, Nashville, Tennessee.
Second class postage paid at Nashville, Tennessee.
C. A. McKnight
Alexander Heard
Reed Sarratt
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Community Action
NAACP Delegation
Asks Gov. Moore
To Seek Compliance
A delegation of 110 representatives of
the National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People asked
Gov. Dan K. Moore to seek compli
ance with the 1964 Civil Rights Act,
at a meeting April 20 in Raleigh.
Kelly Alexander of Charlotte, state
president of the NAACP, spoke for the
group, which included presidents and
officials from NAACP chapters. Among
points made, Alexander demanded full
desegregation of schools. He said:
“We have witnessed throughout this
state adoption of so-called freedom-
of-choice plans to insure only token
mixing of students in the various
schools. Very few school districts plan
any substantial change, presently, in
the racially discriminatory assignment
of school personnel . . .
“No school board in North Carolina
has completely eliminated all vestiges
of racial discrimination in the operation
and administration of the public school
system. More school suits have been
filed in North Carolina than in any
other state seeking desegregation of
the public schools.”
Alexander called urban renewal ac
tivities part of a program “thwarting,
as though planned, efforts to achieve
integration in schools. . .”
Gov. Moore said:
“I want to assure you I will give the
requests serious consideration. We are
seeking total development of the state
for all our people. We are putting em
phasis on education and industrial de
velopment.”
Legal Action
Charlotte Board
Files Answers
To 50 Questions
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of
Education filed answers to 50 9 ue ^_
tions asked Feb. 10 by Negro plainti®
in the case of Swann et al. v. Charlotte
Mecklenburg Board of Education.
The original action was filed J 3 ®-
by parents of 25 Negro children
10 families, complaining against
school system’s pupil assignment P® c .
In its answer, the school board "S*
its 109 schools with enrollments of
dents by race and their faculty 01 ,
bers noted by race. It also descri
steps toward desegregation taken
the school board since 1962.
Projected figures on future ^
ment based on the board’s new ass*
ment policy were not given.
★ ★ ★
Action must be taken to P r ® ve ^| va te
setting up of “a resurgence of P g [
schools” to prevent desegregati® ^
schools in North Carolina,
Moody, deputy attorney ® eneI \l 1 jtte e
the state senate judiciary c °
April 24. He is seeking a law ^ a
will prevent the establishmen ^
private school without approv s .
State Board of Education. His s ^
tion was referred to a subcomn®
further study.