Focus on the Newsmakers: School integration

Mary Donald, interviews John Fortenberry about the new desegregation plan in the Pulaski County School District. Discussions include busing, middle school, and curriculum.
The transcript for this item was created using machine transcription and may contain errors.
This is Focus on the Newsmakers. Today and in the next few weeks and focus on the newsmakers, KAY will present a series of interviews with officials of the three school districts in Pulaski County. On today's program, we feature an interview with Mr. John Fortenberry. Mr. Fortenberry is assistant superintendent in charge of instruction in the Little Rock School District, where a 5-2-2-3 desegregation plan has been ordered into effect. Under the plan, elementary schools will consist of the first five grades. There will be a new set of schools called the middle schools for grades six and seven. Junior high schools will house grades 8 and 9, and senior high grades will be 10, 11, and 12. Mr. Fortenberry, the questions that I'd like to ask you today are related directly to the new plan ordered by the court for the Little Rock School District. And there's been some speculations to the fact that desegregation might cause education that's not up to par as to the way it has been in the past. We'll call it a reduction in the quality. of education that our children might get. Do you think that busing will, since we, our new plan calls for a great deal of busing on the secondary level, will result in a reduced reduction in the quality of education? Well, let me say that in the first place, I am opposed to a program of busing, but since it has been initiated and ordered by the federal court, after the children once get into school, it shouldn't disturb the quality of education in our school program. Other than busing being inconvenient and expensive, I really don't see that it will disturb the quality of education. Okay, Mr. Parsons, the school superintendent, made an address earlier this week, and in that address he said something about the new plan and he says that it will in a way. be a bit better in the fact that we will be able to do some of the things that we have not been able to do before. Do you have any ideas to some of the things he might have been talking about? Yes, he was speaking specifically about the middle school operation. The middle school, of which there will be three, includes the sixth and seventh grade. Prior to this time, the sixth grade has been in the elementary school and the seventh grade in junior high school. But we think that the addition of the middle school is an educational plus for our school system simply due to the fact that it isolates the special problems that boys and girls have at this particular age level. And it does give us an opportunity to plan a specific program of instruction for these boys and girls, which I think will be to their advantage. You mentioned program of instruction. This new plan putting eighth and ninth graders together and then tenth, eleventh, and twelfth graders together. And, well, will there be any subjects that might not be offered now that were offered when the school was structured as it has been in the past? Actually, at the junior high school level, in the eighth and ninth grades, all of the subjects that have been offered in the past are being offered for the coming year. At the middle school level, we are adding some subjects due to the fact that we have special special opportunity to revise the curriculum. So students in the middle schools will get more music, they will get more art, and they will get more reading instruction. Basically those are the areas where students will get increased opportunities in the middle school area. The senior high school curriculum is basically the same. We phased out Horace Mann High School. bricklaying and vocational garment making has been moved to Metropolitan High School. The elementary school curriculum is essentially the same. We're in the process of developing a non-graded school for the elementary school above the primary level. We'll be working on that this year. In the 72-73 school year, we will hopefully be able to initiate a complete non-graded program at the elementary level. which adds on to our non graded primary now. You're talking about make basically academic right then. Do you have any ideas to the effect of a new plan on the athletic programs among the senior high schools in particular? At the senior high schools, I don't see any adverse effect on the athletic program. At the junior high school level, there is a possibility that we will have two. junior high school football teams at each junior high school. If enough students come out for football, then we'll develop two teams. At the middle school level there will be no athletics at the sixth grade level of course other than physical education. At the seventh grade level in the middle school we will continue the seventh grade athletic program and those students that wish to play football and basketball may do so and then they will play each other. There will be a round robin among the seventh grades in the city. Well, I understand that today registration is going on in the secondary schools in Little Rock. Do you have any ideas to whether or not attendance and registration attendance, registration is up in regard to last year's attendance? I can't tell just yet. We had a good registration yesterday. I haven't had a report on it today and be impossible to tell until the last day of registration. When you called me in July, you said that elementary registration dates will be announced later. for that yet? No we haven't announced the date for elementary registration yet. We think it will be the latter part of the third week in August but we're going to try to coordinate the secondary time when students come back to pick up their class cards, pay fees and pick up their book list and as soon as we can establish the time when the secondary schools are ready to hand out the class schedule cards then we will attempt to coordinate that with the elementary school and have one final time for students to come back in prior to the beginning of school. So within a week I think we'll be able to announce the elementary registration date. Well on the elementary level I understand that under the new plan somewhere just over 200 students will be bussed. in re in regard to the entire plan just 200 elementary students I made and next year comes for extensive busing on the elementary level as well as the others. How did you go about picking the students or have you picked the students that will be bused in the elementary plan? Yes those students have been selected but I do not have that information here and I can't comment on it. That's in the pupil personnel office. I just don't have the information with me now. Well, the plan for 1972-73 as far as busing elementary school, is that similar to a pairing type plan for elementary schools? Or? Yeah. We haven't discussed to any great length at this point how we would work the elementary desegregation plan. We've been too busy on secondary up to this point, but it would have to be some sort of pairing I would assume. Well so far on the secondary level with the plan that we have now I believe it's the 5-2-2-3 plan. Right. school for school but on all levels. Students at the elementary school level of course for this coming year that was you're talking about this coming year since these schools are not completely desegregated then the number would fluctuate throughout the system. At the middle school level the percentage will be At the middle school level it will be approximately 40 percent, a little more or a little less. At the junior high school level it will be from 35 to 40 percent black and the middle school level, the percentage I gave there was black also. And at the senior high school level it will run approximately 32 to 36 percent black. At each of the schools? Yes. busing. Well, moving in some close to 8000 kids, just over 7000 kids out of that district. So I understand the plan for busing. We only plan on busing something like 5000. Is this a reason for that? Well, I don't know exactly where you got that information, but approximately 7000 students will have the opportunity to ride the school bus and we will provide for this number. Now exactly how many will ultimately take advantage of riding the school bus we will have to wait until school starts to find out but we just know that there's a little over 7,000 pupils that will qualify for busing. Do you have any idea as to how much the busing deal might cost? No right now I don't simply due to the fact that we have not been able to obtain the buses that will be necessary we think that we will need 50 school buses but we haven't been able to Get a hold of 50 school buses yet. So we're still not sure exactly what the cost will be. Maybe your office hasn't received too much on this, but as far as patrons, it's how they feel about the new plan. If you had a lot of adverse reaction to it. We have had some adverse reaction. Yes. The biggest objection is to pupils being bussed and having to go to school a long way from their neighborhood. And of course this objection comes from both black parents and white parents. As far as integration is concerned, we haven't had a great deal of objection to that part of it, but it's the destruction of the neighborhood school that seems to disturb patrons mostly, and we agree with that. Well, don't you think that the plan that you have implemented calling for the busing of both black and white pupils might more or less ease some of the tensions that could develop if some other type of plan might have been adopted just moving up, just closing maybe the schools where mostly the black students live, as it was last year. I know a lot of people and things going on. Oh, yes. We think that the burden is being equally shared according to the ratio of black to white in the community. And we think that both parents and the school administration and the school board feel as if this plan is equitable or at least as equitable as we could make it. Well, what has been the teacher reaction to the new plan, especially considering the fact that under the plan, some of the teachers will not be allowed to take their students to the schools that they are working, at which they are working? Of course, I think most teachers or at least many teachers would prefer to take their children to the school where they are assigned to teach. But this simply is not possible at this time. It would disrupt somewhat the ratio that we have in the schools. And we just don't think this is a good time to give teachers this so-called break. when they must share the burden as much as the patrons. Okay, this is sort of like off the subject, but recently I heard a commentary. And it was in regard to using the schools only 75% of the year. And it was an argument for a year-round school, or something close to the year-round school concept. Do you think that the court orders calling for complete integration of schools, or more or less racial balance in schools, might eventually lead to setting up a system whereby a we might Little Rock schools might eventually move to something close to a year-round school district. I rather doubt that the courts will impose a year-round school plan. Although they possibly could. They've imposed a lot of things that we didn't think they would impose. But there have been a number of schools across the country that have gone to a year-round program. And we are studying the year-round school, not on a concentrated basis, but we're reading all the literature and the material that's coming out on the year-round school. And we find that some educators are for the year-round school and others are against the year-round school. It has been proven, I think, that the year-round school does not save any money. The Atlanta public schools prove this rather conclusively. But I rather doubt within the real near future that our school system will be going to the year round school. Do you have any comment as to how you think the Little Rock school system just might operate this year on its first year of under this court order? Well we're going to put forth the best effort that we possibly can to have a good school program to have all schools safe and secure for boys and girls. we're going to enforce discipline and make sure that all students that attend school are diligent in their studies and if they are disruptive they will be asked to leave school. So we hope that for the coming year that we will experience a good school year and one that will be productive for the boys and girls. Today's guest and focus on the newsmakers was Mr. John Fortenberry, assistant superintendent in charge of instruction in the Little Rock schools. Next week... Number two in a series of programs on the three Pulaski County school districts. This is Mary Donald of the KAAY News Department. Focus on the Newsmakers, a program of sound has been presented as a public service of KAAY News. Join us next week for KAAY's Focus on the Newsmakers.