By Brigid Schulte
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 8, 1999; Page B1

The federal court ruling Wednesday that struck down Montgomery County's intricate, race-based transfer policy follows similar rulings elsewhere that have school officials nationwide grappling with how to keep schools from becoming racially isolated.

"The danger is, if schools become resegregated, people will assume that schools that are majority white are better and schools that are majority black or Hispanic or minority are somehow not as good. Because that's what we struggle with already," said Beatrice B. Gordon (At-Large), a member of the Montgomery County Board of Education. "And I see the benefit of public schools as helping prepare students to live in a world that isn't segregated."

Prince George's County, emerging from a 25-year-old system of court-ordered busing, already is working to develop new magnet program admissions policies using testing and other factors, in addition to race, to promote diversity.

In Montgomery, the question yesterday was: Do school officials refashion the 20-year-old transfer policy, or do they go to the Supreme Court?

"We ought to pursue it," Gordon said, "because this is going to have implications well beyond just this one case."

In a much-watched ruling, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond held that Montgomery County was wrong last year to deny Jeffrey Eisenberg's request to transfer his son, Jacob, to a magnet program in another Silver Spring elementary school solely because he is white.

The ruling followed similar federal court decisions in Arlington, Boston and Charlotte that have upheld white parents' claims of discrimination against school admissions, enrollment or transfer policies designed to promote diversity. A similar case is pending in New York.

In the Montgomery case, Jacob's home school in Silver Spring, Glen Haven Elementary, has steadily lost white students as families either move out of the area or send their children to private schools. In 1994, white students made up 39 percent of the school population. Last year, that number had fallen to 24 percent, far below the county average of 54 percent.

In an effort to "racially balance" schools and ensure they are diverse, the county's transfer policy generally forbids students of a racial or ethnic group to transfer from a school in which that group's numbers are dropping. Likewise, they are unable to transfer into schools that already meet county-wide averages for each group. Hardship, family unity and whether schools are crowded or below capacity are also taken into consideration.

So white students such as Jacob have been prevented from transferring out of schools such as Glen Haven, Greencastle and South Lake elementaries. Black students couldn't transfer into Galway or Bel Pre elementaries. Asians couldn't transfer out of Rosemary Hills Elementary. Hispanics couldn't get into Highland View Elementary. And no one but white students could transfer out of Poolesville Elementary.

The complex transfer policy, created after black parents filed a civil rights complaint in 1981, was designed to keep county schools from resegregating as the population grew more diverse and housing patterns began creating racially isolated areas.

The board will meet with its attorneys next week to discuss whether to appeal to the Supreme Court, redesign the county's policy or do nothing. The decision will be a major test for new Superintendent Jerry Weast.

"This is why I came on the board, to tackle problems like this and find workable solutions," said Kermitt Burnett, one of two African Americans on the board. "If that means changing the way we look at transfer policies and the types of programs we put in schools to make them more equitable, I'm willing to do that."

Part of the answer may lie in what Montgomery County already has created: the Northeast Consortium. Faced with booming growth in the northeastern part of the county and the possibility that a newly built high school would be nearly all white, leaving nearby Springbrook High School largely black, community members came up with a plan to combine "signature" programs with limited enrollment choice.

Now, students in the northeastern part of the county may attend one of three high schools, each with a specific academic focus. An arts program was established at Blake, in a largely white community, in an effort to draw minority students. Officials put a technology and rigorous International Baccalaureate program at Springbrook, in the black community, to draw white and Asian students. And so far, Gordon said, things seem to be working.

Farther afield, Broward County, Fla., has redefined "diversity" to include not only race, but gender, religion, language spoken and socioeconomic status. Its 48 magnet schools are open to everyone, and the number of minorities enrolling has steadily climbed. In the past, Broward was under a court desegregation order that primarily drew white students to magnet schools that are usually located in minority areas.

Beyond magnets, any student can go to any school, as long as it is not crowded and parents provide the transportation. Leslie Brown, director of the Broward magnet program, said that some schools are resegregating but that the district is watching carefully to ensure that such racial separation does not mean an unequal education.

"They put very strong principals in schools that are perhaps in more need," Brown said. "These strong leaders attract very strong educators."

Legal experts say a number of school districts around the country with similar race-based admissions policies have been nervously watching Montgomery County's Eisenberg case.

Last night, the Arlington County School Board voted 4 to 1 to ask the full 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear the decision of its three-judge panel declaring the admission system for the Arlington Traditional School unconstitutional.

The panel said last month that the magnet school's use of a lottery that gave preference to poor minority students illegally discriminated against white and Asian students trying to get into the popular school.

School officials in Prince George's County said the Montgomery ruling would not affect their plan to phase out 25 years of court-ordered busing to desegregate schools and their race-based magnet school programs.

Last summer, a federal judge ended the 25-year busing system in Prince George's, saying it was no longer serving a useful purpose. School officials, the county government and representatives of the NAACP agreed on a plan to return students to neighborhood schools, build schools and take criteria other than race into account for magnet admissions.

Andrew Nussbaum, an attorney who helped the Prince George's school system craft its court-approved agreement to end busing, said officials do not have to force integration but should strive to diversify schools "as much as is practicable."

"The idea is if you open a new school in an area that is predominantly or overwhelmingly one race and there is no way to practicably desegregate the school, it's going to have those numbers," Nussbaum said. "What is practicable? The system could look at the question of whether a magnet program can be placed in the building to desegregate it [voluntarily] through the magnet."

Staff writers David Nakamura and Jay Mathews contributed to this report.