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'White flight' in Boulder
Schools becoming segregated as many select other options

By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News
December 19, 2005

BOULDER - The neighborhood around Columbine Elementary School is 87 percent Anglo. But enrollment numbers indicate that many neighborhood kids are going elsewhere. This year, the school in northeast Boulder is 82 percent Hispanic.

"Most of the parents who are involved in this would not say they were (engaged in) 'white flight' - they were simply choosing options that were better for their children," says Julie Phillips, who stepped down in November as Boulder school board president.

But Richard Garcia, a member of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education who put six children through Boulder schools, is more blunt:

"My feeling is the problem is racism," Garcia says. "I think people are leaving Columbine because they don't like to be with brown kids. I know I'm going to get killed because I said that, but I'm going to call it as I see it."

'Tweaking with choice'

Under Colorado law, parents have wide latitude in selecting among schools within a district, or even in other districts, to enroll their children.

In Boulder, Anglo parents are choosing schools other than Columbine.

Similar patterns are emerging in south Boulder and Lafayette, which is part of the Boulder district. The district's two bilingual schools are lopsidedly Hispanic.

"A lot of the flight on the surface is because of the programs that parents want their kids to go to. But underneath at some schools, when a percentage of minority kids or poor kids gets to a certain level, people have not wanted to put their children (there)," says Superintendent George Garcia, who is not related to Richard Garcia.

Garcia says the district can't do anything about the state's open enrollment law, but a citizen task force in June suggested several strategies to disperse the district's students more equitably.

That could include enrollment targets for minorities and economically disadvantaged students at Boulder schools. The targets would be achieved through enrollment caps and preferences.

For example, students eligible for free and reduced-cost lunch, a main measure of poverty, would be given preference at schools with mostly middle- or upper-income students.

Students from low-income families would be provided transportation so they can take advantage of open enrollment. Families now must provide their own transportation when enrolling outside their neighborhood school.

The board of education will discuss those ideas in January, Garcia says.

The issue could be explosive, says school board President Helayne Jones.

"We take it seriously and want to do something about it. We also recognize that any time you try to touch these issues it can be politically sensitive," Jones says.

"Any time you start tweaking with choice - which I think a lot of parents hold very dear and feel it's their right - any time you try to limit that, you can ruffle a lot of feathers," she adds.

School segregation has been a subject of discussion - and embarrassment - for the past five years in Boulder, a community that considers itself the most progressive in the state.

"For a liberal community, we aren't looking so liberal in the white flight we've experienced from some schools in the last 10 years," says Phillips, who was barred by term limits from seeking a third term on the school board.

Scores and segregation


The increasing segregation of Boulder schools was highlighted in a 2000 study by University of Colorado education school professors Kenneth Howe and Margaret Eisenhart.

"Whites are disproportionately requesting open enrollment in schools with high test scores; Latinos are disproportionately requesting open enrollment in bilingual schools," Howe and Eisenhart wrote.

Still unclear is whether attendance patterns are a factor in the low test scores of Hispanic students. Boulder has the widest gap in the metro area between scores of Anglo and Hispanic students on state achievement tests.

Evidence of a link between test scores and ethnic segregation is inconclusive, Howe says.

"That's where we are right now. We don't really know," he says.

But numerous studies over the past 40 years have shown a strong correlation between low test scores and concentrations of economically disadvantaged students in a school, Howe says.

At Columbine, Hispanic kids and poor kids are mostly the same. Hispanics were 82.9 percent of the students in 2004-05, while 83.2 percent of the school's students were eligible for free or reduced-cost lunch.

Columbine received a rating of low - one step above unsatisfactory - on state school report cards issued Dec. 6. Three nearby, mostly Anglo, schools were rated average, high and excellent.

Poverty and ethnicity shouldn't make a difference in whether students learn, says Richard Garcia, who is a former social studies teacher and principal.

"Any school worth its salt, with good teachers and good principals and good attitudes, can get these kids to achieve well," he says.

Jared Polis, a member of the Colorado Board of Education and a Boulder native, says the school district should stop blaming open enrollment for school segregation and do more to attract Anglo families back to schools like Columbine.

"Merely claiming racism can be an excuse not to take action, and sometimes that's what it becomes," Polis says.

"I think that parents of all colors care most about the quality of the school and achievement," Polis says. "If there's a school where their kids are getting a good education, and the teachers are good and the program is good and their child is happy, I don't think they care what color the child that sits next to them is."

George Garcia said the district is trying to provide incentives to attract Anglo students to schools that are disproportionately Hispanic.

Pre-engineering and International Baccalaureate programs are slated for Centaurus High School, between Louisville and Lafayette, which has been trending Hispanic in recent years.

"So we've been working on it," the superintendent says.

As for Columbine, Principal Lynn Widger says Anglo parents shun the school because they believe their children will be more challenged elsewhere.

"I think it's a concern around that, vs. racism," Widger says.

But, she says, Anglo parents would find a rich curriculum for their children at Columbine and teachers who are skilled at tailoring lessons to the needs of individual children.

"I don't want them to come here necessarily because they would serve our Latino children," Widger says of Anglo kids. "I want them to come here because it would be a good environment for them.

"And, yes, they would learn about diversity, as well as our children here would have more intercultural interaction."

Segregation will continue to be a hot topic.

Howe is conducting further research on minority children in integrated and segregated schools in Boulder. The Piton Foundation is funding another such study in Denver.

CU will host a conference on the subject in January.

Enrollment patterns

Figures are for the current school year:*

• North Boulder

School Anglo Hispanic

Columbine 13.5 82.0
Crest View 69.9 17.4
Foothill 90.5 3.3
Whittier 68.3 17.2

• South Boulder

School Anglo Hispanic

Creekside 52.4 29.7
Bear Creek 86.2 1.7
Mesa 93.7 1.9

• Middle schools in Boulder

School Anglo Hispanic

Casey 42.9 47.8
Centennial 83.5 11.1
Manhattan 71.3 18.5
Southern Hills 87.7 3.8

• Lafayette

School Anglo Hispanic

Sanchez 30.4 63.9
Lafayette 70.5 20.7

• Bilingual schools

School Anglo Hispanic

Pioneer 36.9 59.4
University Hill 27.0 69.7

* Blacks, Asians and American Indians omitted

Source: Boulder Valley School District, 2005



morsonb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5209