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15 Clearinghouse Rev. 1010 (1981-1982)
Equal Protection Considerations in School Closures

handle is hein.journals/clear15 and id is 1060 raw text is: EQUAL PROTECTION CONSIDERATIONS IN SCHOOL CLOSURES by Kirk Ah Tye School closures are likely events when public school districts encounter declining enrollments, and especially if such decline is compounded by diminished revenues. Closing schools is a legitimate means of economizing, because a district may consolidate attendance areas and reduce operational costs. Ad- ditionally, the school properties themselves may generate in- come by lease or sale. However, there may be profound equal protection con- siderations when the selection of a school for closing discrimi- nates by reason of race, national origin or indigency. Eliminat- ing neighborhood schools transcends mere physical shutdowns and student relocation, especially for certain minority communi- ties. For example, the probability of educational failure for poor Hispanics is increased because of historical inequities compounded by cultural factors; their right to an equal education opportunity may be undermined in a substantive sense. schools. The response of the Santa Barbara School District2 was to close three of five predominately Hispanic elementary schools in a system of eleven schools, without closing any white schools. Five of the eleven schools were predominately white in composition. While nearly equal numbers of white and Hispanic students are enrolled in the district, the percentage of Hispanic children in the district attending the three schools chosen for closure constituted 30 percent of all Hispanics in the district. Former students of the closed schools were and are subject to one-way busing away from their neighborhoods and attendance areas to white schools. Geographically, the closed schools are located in contiguous attendance areas, constituting a substantial part of the district as well as the heart of the Hispanic community in the city. The school district utilized race and indigency as princi- pal criteria in selecting which schools to close.3 Indeed, the There is substantial likelihood that minority and poor communities will exclusively bear the burdens of school closures when white-dominated school boards favor white constituencies. There is substantial likelihood that minority and poor communities will exclusively bear the burdens of school clo- sures when white-dominated school boards favor white constit- uencies. This political reality is augmented by the desire of such boards to prevent the perceived threat of white flight.' The poor, who are politically powerless, are also financially unable to leave the public school system. This article addresses discriminatory closures based on race and indigency. School Closures in Santa Barbara, California In California, Proposition 13 (CAL. CONST. art. XIIIA) and dwindling enrollments, which reduce average daily atten- dance revenues, have yielded fiscal hardship in the public The author, Kirk Ah Tye, is an attorney with the Channel Counties Legal Services Association, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. 1. Valencia, The School Closure Issue and the Chicano Community, 12 URB. REv. (Spring 1980). chosen schools were among the top four in Hispanic composi- tion and contained the higher concentrations of low-income children in the district. A lawsuit was commenced against the school district in state superior court on April 19, 1979. (Angeles v. Santa Barbara School District (Clearinghouse No. 26,665).) Plaintiffs 2. Reflecting national and statewide trends, the district will continue to experience declining enrollments. It is projected that from 1967 to 1983 the district will have lost 52 percent of its enrollment. Moreover, the loss in average daily attendance revenues in the 1979-1980 school year exceeded a quarter of a million dollars. Id. 3. The criteria were published in the district's promulgated plan: 1) Close those with the least adequate facilities and sites; 2) close those which are the most useful for other educational or public purposes; 3) close those which will lead to the least long-term ethnic and socio-economic segregation. THOMAS, A PROPOSAL TO CLOSE SCHOOLS IN THE SANTA BARBARA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DISTRICT 18 (Jan. 15, 1979). Although the third criterion seems virtuous, the district intended it as justification for eliminating only those schools whose students were predominately minority and poor. These students would then be integrated at white schools. CLEARINGHOUSE REVIEW

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