The Cleveland School District is defending its latest proposed plan to desegregate its schools, arguing that alternate plans would encourage white flight and reduce racial diversity.

The school board, with the support of Superintendent Jacquelyn Thigpen, most recently proposed a plan that would house most 6th through 8^th graders, along with 11^th and 12^th graders, at facilities on the predominantly white west side of town. Ninth and 10^th graders would be located at the current East Side High campus, the majority black area of Cleveland.

“The District has designed the Unified High School Plan to address specific concerns from the East Side community regarding East Side High’s legacy and the importance of maintaining a facility offering significant programming in that community,” the district’s Dec. 19 filing stated.

The filing came after both the U.S. Department of Justice and the private plaintiffs in the decades-long case made filings saying they opposed the district’s plan. Both argued that a court-ordered plan from May is a better solution.

The U.S. Department of Justice said the Cleveland schools’ plan “fails to equitably balance the burdens and benefits of desegregation across the Cleveland community, and is both less feasible and less educationally sound than the Court’s Adopted Plan,” a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Debra Brown stated.

But lawyers for the district say “mandatory reassignment of students has already failed and resulted in tremendous loss of white students in the District over a twenty-year period – a fact the district court ignored and the Plaintiff-Parties have failed to address. Testimony regarding anticipated white flight in the District under the district court’s mandatory reassignment plan is not speculative; it based on historical evidence from this district.”

The district is currently 68 percent African-American and 27 percent white.

Court documents state that a hearing by Brown on the district’s latest proposal is expected to be held in January.

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Cleveland defends its desegregation plan

by Kate Royals, Mississippi Today
December 21, 2016

<h1>Cleveland defends its desegregation plan</h1> <p class="byline">by Kate Royals, Mississippi Today <br />December 21, 2016</p> <p>The Cleveland School District is defending its <a href="https://mississippitoday.org/2016/11/23/new-cleveland-desegregation-plan-sparks-talks/">latest proposed plan</a> to desegregate its schools, arguing that alternate plans would encourage white flight and reduce racial diversity.</p> <p>The school board, with the support of Superintendent Jacquelyn Thigpen, most recently proposed a plan that would house most 6th through 8^th graders, along with 11^th and 12^th graders, at facilities on the predominantly white west side of town. Ninth and 10^th graders would be located at the current East Side High campus, the majority black area of Cleveland.</p> <p>“The District has designed the Unified High School Plan to address specific concerns from the East Side community regarding East Side High’s legacy and the importance of maintaining a facility offering significant programming in that community,” the district’s Dec. 19 filing stated.</p> <p>The filing came after both the U.S. Department of Justice and the private plaintiffs in the decades-long case made filings saying they <a href="https://mississippitoday.org/2016/12/19/plaintiffs-reject-cleveland-schools-latest-desegregation-plan/">opposed the district’s plan</a>.&nbsp;Both argued that a court-ordered plan from May is a better solution.</p> <p>The U.S. Department of Justice said the Cleveland schools’ plan “fails to equitably balance the burdens and benefits of desegregation across the Cleveland community, and is both less feasible and less educationally sound than the Court’s Adopted Plan,” a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Debra Brown stated.</p> <p>But lawyers for the district say “mandatory reassignment of students has already failed and resulted in tremendous loss of white students in the District over a twenty-year period – a fact the district court ignored and the Plaintiff-Parties have failed to address. Testimony regarding anticipated white flight in the District under the district court’s mandatory reassignment plan is not speculative; it based on historical evidence from this district.”</p> <p>The district is currently 68 percent African-American and 27 percent white.</p> <p>Court documents state that a hearing by Brown on the district’s latest proposal is expected to be held in January.</p> <p>This <a target="_blank" href="https://mississippitoday.org/2016/12/21/cleveland-defends-its-desegregation-plan/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://mississippitoday.org">Mississippi Today</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://mississippitoday.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=39408&ga=UA-75003810-1" style="max-width:200px"></p> Copy to Clipboard

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