Board Debates Suspension of School's Arts Focus

In 1999, to accommodate population growth on the city's West End and northeast section, the School Board voted to redistrict the city's schools. The all-white board voted 7 to 2 to create a band of wealthier, whiter schools on the east side and leave three schools, Maury, Lyles-Crouch and Jefferson-Houston, heavily populated by minorities and the poor.

Critics and some neighborhood associations at the time warned against such a plan, calling it "resegregation." They said that education studies had shown consistently that the more concentrated the poverty, the less likely students are to achieve academically.

Sally Ann Baynard, who was a School Board member at the time and one of the two votes against the redistricting, described the plan as "evil." "The ones who prevailed knew exactly what they were doing. It was perfectly obvious -- concentrating poverty," Baynard said. "And they wanted to concentrate whiteness in the schools that they cared about."

The current School Board chairman, Claire M. Eberwein, served on the board in 1999 and voted to support the plan.

"My recollection is that during the redistricting process, the board looked at over two dozen scenarios, each one having boundary implications for every elementary school in the system," Eberwein said in an e-mail. "The creation of the Jefferson-Houston and Lyles-Crouch focus schools was to foster diversity throughout the system. The implementation of those programs occurred after I left the board in 2000. Speaking as one member of the current board, my focus now is to ensure that the children at Jefferson-Houston receive the best education the Alexandria school system can provide."

In addition to the redistricting in 1999, the board voted to create a traditional academy at Lyles-Crouch and an arts academy at Jefferson-Houston to draw more affluent students and balance the demographics.

The plan worked at Lyles-Crouch, which is now diverse and meeting state and federal academic benchmarks.

It failed miserably at Jefferson-Houston, some parents say.

Before redistricting, more than 600 students attended the school. This year, barely 200 do. In 1999, half the school's students were poor enough to qualify for free and reduced meals; this year, more than 80 percent qualify. More than 90 percent of the students are black and Hispanic. And more than 40 percent of the school's students need special education services, the highest percentage of any school in the city.

Close to 80 students who live in the school's attendance zone, the majority of them white and affluent, opted to go to other city public schools this year, school officials said.

Superintendent Rebecca L. Perry said that when she arrived in Alexandria in 2001, she sought to understand the redistricting decision and deal with the fallout. "It's not my job to second-guess what a board has done but to try to fix the problems that exist or address the challenges."

With three new heavily minority schools, Perry first focused on Lyles-Crouch. When that school was performing well, she drew heat for transferring its principal to Maury. "I put huge focus and energy on Maury," Perry said. "Not that I didn't pay attention to Jefferson- Houston, but it was one of a kind. We practically ran Maury from central office for a year or two. Right now, Jefferson-Houston is getting the same focused attention."

Perry said Maury, which is now a diverse and high-achieving school, is successful because the community came together to support it. And that, she said, is part of what needs to happen at Jefferson-Houston. "But it's a double-edged sword, because until a school is successful, people don't want to send their children, and I understand that," she said. "Once we get the children who are there currently performing and successful, the community would be more than happy to come to their close-by school. There are enough children in that community that, if we get the parents working with us, we can make that school successful."

That's a vision Campbell, the Jefferson-Houston PTA president, desperately wants to see realized. School officials have said that once the school starts meeting standards, they will again open the discussion of creating a focus school. Campbell would like to see an International Baccalaureate or other college prep program, or a KIPP Academy charter school, there. And he would like to see the city break up the concentrated poverty of the projects to give all children a better chance of academic success. "You can waste a lot of time on 'I told you so's,' " he said. "I want to focus on the future."