A group of black parents has asked the Montgomery County school board to suspend the middle school magnet application process on the grounds that too few black students are accepted into some of the specialized programs.
In a memo e-mailed to school board members last week, a group calling itself the African American Parents of Magnet School Applicants said that a three-year review of data found that African American students are admitted to middle school magnet programs in smaller numbers than whites and Asians. In 2004, for example, five of the 82 black students who applied were admitted to the Takoma Park Middle School magnet, while 62 of 248 white students got in, the memo stated.
The parents, who say they have 70 members, also found that 80 percent of the approximately 2,100 black students who had taken the yearly test for the county's elementary gifted and talented program had not gotten in, even as the county has become increasingly diverse. Of the 139,000 students enrolled in the school system this year, 22.1 percent are African American, 18.7 percent are Hispanic, 44.6 percent are white and 14.3 percent are Asian.
"Something is very wrong with that picture," said Thomas D. Broadwater Jr., a volunteer coordinator for the group whose son has applied to the Takoma Park Middle School program. He has not heard whether his son has been admitted.
Montgomery County school officials acknowledged yesterday that there are too few minority students in their magnet programs, which offer specialized classes. "These are very serious complaints and allegations, and it seems to me that they have some very good data that they have presented and the numbers are very disturbing," said school board member Valerie Ervin (Silver Spring).
Yet officials said they have made progress. The number of black students accepted into the three middle school magnets this year is 51, up from the 24 who enrolled last year, said Frieda Lacey, deputy superintendent of schools.
"We realize we have a problem, but we are putting in strategies and initiatives to help us along," Lacey said.
Like most districts in the area, Montgomery County originally used its magnet programs as a method to desegregate the schools. As the county became more diverse and desegregation lawsuits were settled, schools were urged to make their magnet programs reflect the student population. That meant attracting more minorities to what had been widely considered a program aimed at keeping whites at some schools -- not an easy task, said Phil Gainous, principal of Montgomery Blair High School, which has a magnet program.
"It was already indoctrinated in heads that it was for white folk," Gainous said. "So [black] students didn't want to come because [they] didn't want to be the only one."
Officials do not take race into consideration when selecting students, but the system has taken steps to boost the number of minority and low-income applicants. The criteria for admission into the programs vary. Middle school students are required to take tests, and teacher recommendations also are considered.
To spread the word about the magnet programs, the county partnered with the local NAACP chapter to contact parents. This year, the school system offered workshops to parents, gave students practice booklets for the entrance exam and provided transportation to students on the day of the test.
Nonetheless, school board President Patricia O'Neill (Bethesda-Chevy Chase) said yesterday that she did not think the school board could halt the magnet selections because the process was too far along. Testing has been done for programs that require it, and parents are being notified of decisions.
"It's not fair to anyone in the midst of the process to suspend it," she said.
Still, O'Neill and School Superintendent Jerry D. Weast said they were committed to reversing what they called a disturbing trend.
Weast said he hopes to see the number of black and Hispanic students in the county's magnet program increase and he expects the system's initiatives to boost elementary schools with large numbers of poor and minority students to trickle into the upper grades.
"Whatever the numbers are, they will be bigger," he said.
Staff writer Ylan Mui contributed to this report.
