Racial tensions resurface

SEATTLE — Nearly a decade ago, the Kent School District was praised by parents, students and civil rights groups for a bold plan to end racial discrimination and train staff members to handle cultural differences.Today, the district is threatened with lawsuits from parents of 12 black students. The parents say their children were manhandled and handcuffed by school security officers.

The stark contrast is emblematic of how schools nationwide have struggled to implement diversity programs, experts say.

Kent School District Superintendent Barbara Grohe has named a retired Army general to lead a committee investigating the district’s security practices, and a former Grant County sheriff will probe the incidents.

The choice of disciplinarians as investigators has angered the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which is behind the threat to file nearly $40 million in lawsuits on behalf of the 12 students.

Carl Mack, president of the Seattle chapter of the NAACP, said the district’s handling of the issue has been an “insult to the field of education.”

“Are you running a penal institution, a military school … or are you running an education system?” Mr. Mack said.

The panel, led by retired Brig. Gen. Julius F. Johnson, will present its final report in mid-May.

The district, like others nationwide, has had a growing minority population, but critics contend that Kent is not adapting.

“If they had followed through with the original recommendations and implementation strategies, they would have never found themselves in the situation they’re in today,” said Ray Lee, a Kent parent and member of the district’s first diversity task force, which met in 1995.

Researchers say countrywide efforts to address cultural differences in schools have taken a back seat to funding struggles and federal mandates to improve student test scores.

Benjamin Baez, associate professor of educational-policy studies at Georgia State University, said educators often are expected to improve test scores and “uneducate people about racism and make them better workers,” despite the loss of funds for programs that would help achieve the goals.

“Now, when we talk about diversity training, we’re talking as much about closing the achievement gap as we are about discipline procedures,” Miss Grohe said.

In claims filed last month by the NAACP, 12 black students, from ages 11 to 17, say they were the victims of excessive force by school security officers.

One student, 13-year-old Sierra Douglass-Swanson, says she was grabbed by the hair and thrown to the ground, then a security officer’s knees pressed into her back as her arms were wrenched behind her and handcuffs put on.

Sierra acknowledges flailing her arms and kicking her legs in an attempt to get free from the guard. She was charged with assault, placed in juvenile detention overnight and expelled.

At the district’s Cedar Heights Junior High School in Covington, 38-year-old security officer Elmer Burst said he has used his handcuffs once since coming to work for the district in August.

Mr. Burst, who is black, said he’ll do what he can to prevent any student from being harmed.

“If that means using restraints, I’ll do it,” he said.

The threat of a lawsuit by two black parents who said their children were harassed by white students triggered the creation of the Kent district’s diversity council in 1995, former co-chairwoman Barbara Phillips said.

That committee made dozens of recommendations, including nonviolent crisis-intervention training for staff and improving discipline records to monitor for racial discrimination.

Miss Phillips said she’s disappointed with the response.

A curriculum audit released in 1999, the year Miss Grohe took over as superintendent, found that the district was slow to follow certain directives. Tasks such as analyzing discipline reports for possible discrimination patterns were more than a year overdue.

Today, all employees must undergo diversity and cultural sensitivity training, district spokeswoman Becky Hanks said.

During the 1989-90 school year, minorities in the school district made up nearly 15 percent of the student population. Today, they constitute about 35 percent.

And although blacks account for more than 10 percent of the district’s 26,400 students, they represent about 59 percent of students disciplined since September, according to district security reports.

“The numbers show there is a disparity. It’s really clear that it’s based on race, and the race is black,” said Joyce Harris, director of the Equity Center for Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory in Portland, Ore.