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The Re-emergence of Forced Busing in St. Louis
Lora Lou
CoCC
September 1, 2013
On July 11, 2013 the Francis Howell Central High gymnasium in Cottleville, Missouri was packed to the gills with upset parents. Boo’s from the rafters and clamors of protest rang throughout the audience. This was no ordinary parent teacher conference. Just one month before the news had been released that the Missouri Supreme Court had decided that children living in an unaccredited school district may transfer to an accredited school in the same or adjoining county. Normandy School district was the unaccredited school and Francis Howell had been chosen as one of those schools to admit these students.
Normandy School district is located in the towns of Normandy and Wellston in North St. Louis County and has been a failing, crime ridden school for many years. When founded in 1923 by a group of educators the dream was to make the ideal high school. This group of educators goal was achieved, though short lived, and Normandy High was considered a “lighthouse” school with its programs discussed in The American Journal of Education and on panels at The University of Chicago. To understand how such a prestigious high performing school had sunk to becoming an unaccredited one must only look at the students who go there. In 1923 Normandy was 100% white yet by 2013, 98% of the 4,200 students were black.
Francis Howell school district is made up of three high schools and 15 elementary and middle schools and is located in St. Charles County, Missouri. The first high school, Francis Howell High School, was founded in 1881 while the latter two high schools, Francis Howell North and Francis Howell Central, were established in 1986 and 1997 due to the large population increase in St. Charles County. This population boom is due in large part to white citizens of St. Louis County fleeing across the Missouri river to escape crime and violence and is commonly referred to as the “white flight”. In stark contrast to Normandy schools, Francis Howell has 17,000 students of which 86% are white.
It is no surprise that the parents of one of the largest school districts in St. Charles County became upset when told that they were being forced to accept students from one of the worst schools in the metropolitan area. These same parents had uprooted their lives to move away from the ever darkening counties of St. Louis to make a new life for themselves in a safer area, and they had finally attained what they were looking for. St. Charles County is not only the third largest county in all of Missouri but is also the wealthiest. The county is also recognized as being extremely conservative and is ranked as one of the top 100 conservative counties in the United States. To compare heavily liberal St. Louis to heavily conservative St. Charles is like comparing apples to oranges.
Not only will Normandy students be transferred to the Francis Howell high schools but transfers will also be placed in the elementary and middle schools. As one mother stated at the town hall meeting “We’re not talking about the Normandy School District losing its accreditation because of their buildings, structures or their teachers. We are talking about violent behavior that is coming in with my first grader, my third grader and my middle schooler.” Among those protesting the transfer, Francis Howell superintendent Dr. Pam Sloan was in full agreement with the distressed parents. “I feel compelled to go on record to state I do not believe the best way to improve a failing school system is to send some students to an accredited system,” said Dr. Sloan.
Francis Howell parents and teachers fret over violence is not in vain either. Over the past few years the level of dangerous behavior from Normandy middle and high schools has not gone unnoticed from police and fire chiefs. Just last year the high school alone reported 285 disciplinary incidents. These were not your average high school teenager indiscretions either; they were incidents that would get most people arrested. Assaults, drug possession and usage along with possession of weapons are the predominant charges. The rate of students who have received an out of school suspension is more than one for every four students.
Unfortunately it is not only the parents of the Francis Howell district who must be worried about the onslaught of dangerous violent criminals enrolling in class with their children; another unaccredited school district in the St. Louis area has been chosen to transfer their students as well. Riverview Gardens is also located in North St. Louis County and is also overwhelmingly black. Of the 5,700 students ninety-nine percent are black. Combined, Normandy and Riverview Gardens have a total of 1,123 homeless students and 856 of them are enrolled in Riverview Gardens. The schools of choice for Riverview Gardens, Mehlville and Kirkwood, are not located in St. Charles County but are comparable in academic strength and race classification. Mehlville school district is located in South St. Louis County and is approximately 83% white, 8% black and 9% other. Kirkwood city is located in Mid St. Louis County and is 91% white, which should give some indication of the type of students that attend the school.
To know the future of a predominately white school district that experiences an increase of minority enrollments one only has to look to the past. In 1971 Federal Judge James Meredith ordered another St. Louis area school district, the Ferguson-Florissant district, to join with the failing and predominantly black school districts Berkeley and Kinloch. At the time Berkeley was already 41% black and Ferguson-Florissant was 95% white. Over time two-thousand students from Berkeley and Kinloch were bused into Ferguson-Florissant. This was the beginning of the end for the once desirable middle class neighborhoods of North St. Louis County and what started the “white flight” of people from these areas to St. Charles County. As the white population fled businesses suffered, property values declined and low priced housing became available encouraging even more minorities to move into the district. Eventually, even the once grand Northwest Plaza mall, which at one time was one of the largest malls in the country, had to shut its doors.
An uncertain future lies ahead for St. Charles County. The majority of transfer students, all 475 Normandy students that requested to be transferred, were sent to Francis Howell. Riverview Gardens transferred 175 students into the Kirkwood district and 218 students were transferred into the Mehlville district. Unless the forced busing of black students from failed school districts comes to an end, the same abhorrent fate may be awaiting the whites that have already escaped it once. As one unhappy Francis Howell parent stated “All this is going to do is raise our taxes and ruin our accreditation! It’s not our fault that they ruined their school district!” Sadly the day may come, and sooner than originally expected, when the white flight must be on the move once again for safer grounds. The only good thing that may come of this is the awakening of more people and politicians to the disastrous effects forced busing causes.
Under the plans being implemented for both districts (K-12), the students can either remain in their original district or go to the paired schools (Normandy to Francis Howell and Riverview to either Mehlville or Kirkwood) and the original, unaccredited district will pay busing transportation costs and tuition to the new accredited school. However, the students are also given the option to remain in their district or choose any other district in the area. If they choose any school other than the paired ones, the original, unaccredited district is only responsible for paying tuition to the new school and the students must provide their own transportation. The cost of these transfers will probably bankrupt Normandy and Riverview School Districts.
In Missouri, a school district is considered unaccredited only because it does not meet certain standards set by the State. However, under the law, the unaccredited status has no adverse impact on students who graduated from these schools. The City of St. Louis School District, the largest in the State, is also unaccredited. If the state legislature doesn’t straighten out this mess, it will develop into a major calamity for the entire St. Louis Metropolitan Area.
