We’ve moaned and groaned for years. What to do about the schools? The problems seemed insurmountable — overcrowding, busing, apathy partly caused by the busing, an unintegrated school in an integrated community. Everyone who tried to solve the problem ran into the problem of space — there seemed to be none in our densely populated neighborhood.
Two years of community effort and frustration. Middle class whites and blacks moving back into the neighborhood to renovate the large, attractive homes, quite frankly, justified their investment by figuring the cost of a private school into their mortgage payments or sending their children to the parochial school or seeking permissive transfers.
Thus, a myth was born. Hamilton, which was located in the most blighted area of the neighborhood, somehow became, in the minds of many, a large, dangerous, overcrowded place. Some thought this line of reasoning was veiled racism, and the community divided into two camps. Thus, the truth about the school became obscured in rumor and innuendo.
Yet, whatever the myth, it is also apparent that the community cannot and will not survive without a school which belongs to the total community. We simply cannot afford a school which is segregated from a large portion of the middle class segment of our community. We need a school where everyone, black and white, rich or poor, feels safe in sending their children and where, most important, everyone feels real learning is taking place. The Hamilton staff, as those of us know who have taken the time to visit the school, maintains that the instructional program is educationally sound. But they are hampered by the myth and the overcrowding.
Now
Mr. Brasfield and the district staff have offered us a solution to the overcrowding, and at the same time, an attractive way to significantly integrate the school. Even more important, he has provided an opportunity for us to develop a new kind of school-community relationship — a working partnership where both faculty and community pool their resources to get the best for the kids.
Hamilton Branch III offers a good place to begin. For one thing, it’s small, with only 227 kids and it will provide the kind of personal parent-teacher contact necessary. But big Hamilton parents must also begin to attack their problems, as illustrated by a letter from the parents in this issue. The community-school partnership must embrace both schools.
Integration at the school may be slow. Many of the new families moving into the neighborhood do not yet have schoolage children, and whites are in the minority in the community. But as the community becomes more involved in the school, as the Hamilton myth is dispelled, as we all work to support the school, we should see a change in attitudes.
Will the white students graduating from Hamilton Branch III go on to big Hamilton? Many in the community think so. As one of the members of the Resource Committee states, “They’ll be going on to Hamilton because they’ll be graduating with their friends and neighbors.” Integration, however, is significant in only that it will dispel the Hamilton myth and its segregation from the community. What really counts, in the final analysis, is what goes on in the classroom between the teacher and the pupils. And the school staff needs the support of the community to do their job. Mr. Brasfield, Mr. Gregory, Mr. Miller came to our community meetings and listened to our pleas for consolidation and an end to the busing. They’ve made it possible, and not without considerable effort on their part. We owe them our thanks. We who worked on the committee last year to solve some of the overcrowding problems never thought it would happen. But it did, and partly because this community made its wishes known to the Board of Education. Now it’s up to us. We can, if we try, make Hamilton a school for the total community, as Mr. Brasfield states — “A source of community loyalty and pride.”
To do this is going to take more involvement in the school than going to PTA meetings once a month. We happen to be a community rich in human resources with mechanics living next door to university professors. Let’s utilize these resources and, under the direction of the school staff, channel them into the schools. As Mr. Brasfield points out many of the problems the school staff faces are community problems. Let’s take the responsibility for these problems and attact them whether it’s the safety of our children getting back and forth to school or whether it’s organizing an after-school study hall.
Only this working partnership will give us the kind of school this community needs to survive. We can do it if each of us commits himself or herself to the task ahead.
Originally published in The Paper, May 1973.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1973_05.pdf, printed page(s) 2.
