Archival article — originally published in The Paper, June 1980. By Stephen Brammeier.
Archival date note: only the issue month or season is established. The first-of-month date used for chronological indexing is not a verified publication day.
During the last several weeks much information has been printed pertaining to the desegregation of the St. Louis public schools. Since the last issue of The Paper many changes have been made in the plan which directly involve our neighborhood schools.
Hamilton Branch III will become a magnet school for 6-8 grades, with a program in Academic and Athletic Achievement. The athletic emphasis will be in individual, rather than team, sports. Areas of focus will include track and field, gymnastics, and possibly some winter sports.
“Big Hamilton” will become part of the Dewey cluster. Also in the Dewey cluster will be children from what are presently Mason, Roe and Dewey grade schools. In this cluster Mason school will be closed and the children presently attending Mason will be transferred to Hamilton or Roe. Hamilton and Roe will have grades kindergarten through fifth. Some black children from our neighborhood in grades 1-5 will be transferred to Roe and some white children from the Roe area will be brought to Hamilton. All children from both Hamilton and Roe will attend Dewey middle school for grades 6-8. All kindergarten children in our neighborhood will attend Hamilton.
Participating in the Dewey cluster represents a significant change for our children. The Dewey and Roe schools are located in the area just south of Forest Park, generally within the 28th ward. Originally Hamilton was clustered with Froebel in south St. Louis, requiring a 9-mile bus ride.
The children from our neighborhood that attend Dewey for middle school will attend Soldan for grades 9-12. As presently planned Soldan will become an integrated school by exchanging students with high schools in south St. Louis. However, the children attending Dewey that live south of Forest Park will not go to Soldan.
Although as of this writing the plan has not received final approval, the school board hopes to notify parents and pupils as soon as possible about the schools to which the children will be assigned. A parent of a child not presently enrolled in the St. Louis public school system, but anticipating enrollment in the fall should contact the administration as soon as possible. It is not known which children from our area will attend Roe; however, it is probable that the decision will be based on a block unit method.
In addition to attending the neighborhood schools within the Dewey cluster, there are magnet school programs available to children of our area. Information concerning magnet schools presently operating and plans for new schools may be obtained from the public school Straight Line Story at 231-0908.
Read the original newspaper issue: Archive reader · Direct PDF fallback. Originally published in The Paper, June 1980, pages 1.
