Bromwell and Busing
In 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court found that Denver's schools directly or indirectly supported an unconstitutional segregation of the races. The Court ordered districtwide busing of students to address this problem and to promote integration.
By 1995, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch ruled that Denver had wiped out the "vestiges of past discrimination... to the extent practicable" and that busing was no longer necessary. Busing didn't stop all at once, but gradually wound down. Most busing ended for elementary students in 1996, and for middle and high school students by 1997.
Buses still operate in DPS, generally to transport students on field trips or to sporting events and other special activities. Some daily busing continues, too. Handicapped students receive busing, and most magnet schools offer some kind of busing, so that students throughout the district can attend the special educational programs that magnet schools offer.
Children no longer are bussed in order to promote desegregation, but the concerns about integration and diversity are still with us. Here are several newspaper articles that discuss Bromwell's experience with busing.
DESEGREGATION CONCERNS SURFACE AS PARENTS RAP
by James Crawford, Rocky Mountain New Staff
September 9th, 1974
"I hate to seem so ignorant, but I wish you'd tell me what you prefer being called - black or Negro?" asks the woman from Denver's Cherry Creek district.
Even after an hour's friendly conversation in the Park Hill living room filled with black and white parents, she seems reluctant to say something that reflects, on her part, a cultural disadvantage.
But she musters the courage to ask, and a black parent's response is positive: "We'd rather be called by our names."
The simple exchange was a turning point in an informal rap session held recently for parents of youngsters who next week will begin attending Bromwell and Ellsworth Elementary Schools under the sweeping integration mandate of Denver U.S. District Court.
FEELINGS SURFACE
Before it ended, the meeting had brought to the surface a host of thoughts and feelings about the busing of youngsters to a distant and unfamiliar school, about the integration and education of youngsters of different races and backgrounds, and other unknowns.
It wasn't a large meeting, perhaps 30 attended, but as with similar parent meetings throughout the city, a nucleus was formed of parents anxious to help the new system work for the sake of their children.
Like dozens of other schools, Ellsworth and Bromwell, located in the predominantly white Cherry Creek neighborhood, will receive up to half their students by bus from satellite zones, in this case from predominantly black areas of northeast Denver.
James L, Manley, the soft-spoken principal of both schools, was at the Park Hill session, answering questions and encouraging parents to air any concern about the coming year.
THEMES EMERGE
There were several themes: What about namecalling? What happens to the child who gets sick at a school miles from his home! How do parents without transportation get to school meetings? What type of parent organizations will support the restructured school communities?
Manley encouraged parents to jot down questions on prepared forms - "don't hesitate to put down anything that has meaning to you" and said a parent committee will begin ironing out the logistical matters at a meeting at Ellsworth at 7:45 pm Wednesday.
He was optimistic that the school administration will give individual principals flexibility in working out problems. "There are many ways of doing things that were taboo several years ago that we can do today," he said. "At one time parents weren't permitted to ride school buses for insurance policy reasons. But if you don't have transportation and want to come to a school meeting, let me know, and I'll arrange to get you on the bus."
But the discussion on logistic details eventually gave way to the gut issues involving children's welfare in an integrated school system - apprehensions about fair treatment of newcomers in the classroom and on the play ground, about the subtle discriminations that children can read in a tone of voice or a routine procedure.
"It's not the busing that matters," said one black parent, "it's what goes on in the schools that really counts. I know that because my kid is a minority, he has to have an education.
"And if a school telegraphs to a kid that he's not OK, all the input in the world at home isn't going to overcome it," she said.
She recalled that several years ago one of her sons was called 'nigger' by a white classmate, and when he complained to the teacher, "she just said 'go sit down.' And he went back to his desk and slammed a book down, and bingo, he was out of class.
NO PAT ANSWERS
The Denver school administration offers no pat answers on how teachers should handle every such incident. But part of its implementation of the integration order involves mandatory inservice training of its 7,OOO-plus employees - custodians, clerks, bus drivers and lunchroom personnel as well as teachers in an effort to heighten awareness of feelings about racial differences and to "humanize" the education process.
"It's really important that children be respected as people, and that's a key word this year," says Mrs. Betty Germany, one of five teachers on special assignment doing inservice training and community rapport work.
One of the films being shown to teachers, she said, is entitled "Shut Up, Sit Down or Get Out." "I'll bet you've all heard that phrase before," she told the parents. She said the film, as well as other training, stresses the importance of eliminating arbitrary discipline methods, and taking a child-centered approach which respects the youngster's legitimate feelings.
ESTABLISHING RAPPORT
The district also has been active this summer in fostering rapport on a student-to-student level. A group of junior high school youngsters selected for leadership abilities spent three days last week at a workshop in Estes Park. sharing ideas for student activities designed to make newcomers feel welcome at their assigned schools. A similar group of senior high students will have such a meeting during a conference at Colorado State University this week.
Most schools also have mailed invitations to parents of all new students, inviting them to a series of picnics and orientation sessions and urging them to communicate at any time with principals.
The response has varied widely, with some community meetings attracting several hundred parents, others a mere handful.
But school administrators agree that the success of the coming year depends heavily on parent support for their new schools, and on their involvement with other parents.
"You have to get them to meetings like this," Mrs. Germany said at the Park Hill session. "When they feel comfortable enough to be really honest with one another about what's on their minds then you can really move."
3 FEET TALL AND READY FOR SCHOOL
by Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News Education Writer
September 1st, 1982
Six-year-old Nicole Williams was the last one on the bus Tuesday morning, behind a dozen other children who boarded at Oneida Street and East 28th Avenue. She was wearing her new lavender-striped jump suit, her hair was combed back, and until a moment before, she had been clutching her mother's arm like a life preserver.
"This child is crying," someone said as Nicole reached the top of the bus stairs.
Doris McGee looked down at little Nicole from the driver's seat. She grinned at Nicole, and without a word, wrapped the child in the kind of bear hug that ends tears immediately.
Then McGee closed the door, Nicole took a seat and the bus was off.
MCGEE, WHO IS NEW TO THE ROUTE,
drove around in circles a few times looking for the next stop, while an aide tried to read the street signs. But within a few minutes, bus No.310 was headed toward Bromwell Elementary School at 2500 E. Fourth Ave., north of Cherry Creek, carrying 49 children from the northeast part of the city.
Tuesday was a day of uncertainty for a lot of people, as 60,500 Denver Public Schools students began the school year. School was in session for only a half day," with children and teachers spending most of their time, getting to know each other.
"I try to let them know we can give them love like they get at home," said McGee, who has been driving a school bus for 12 years and sees a few children like Nicole every year.
MEANWHILE, IN THE BACK OF THE BUS,
Nicole was sitting bolt upright. Her big brown eyes were darting all over the bus, and she had erected an invisible barrier between herself and the little girl in the next seat.
Nicole's mother, Deborah, wasn't doing much better . Mrs. Williams drove down later in the morning to make sure Nicole, her only child, had gotten to Bromwell safely. Mrs. Williams was not alone about 100 parents filled the lobby at Bromwell, where the Bromwell School Community Association provided coffee and cake.
"All of a sudden, I'm a typical Jewish mother," commented Sharon Haber as she peered in at her son, Gabriel, sitting in the same classroom as Nicole.
"Kindergarten was hard, but first grade is harder ," said Patricia Jackson, watching her daughter Lashone sitting in the last row of the same class. "I worry about things I don't have to worry about, but I can't help it."
Lashone did not appear worried. She waved and grinned as her mother finally turned and walked away.
AS AT OTHER SCHOOLS,
the year at Bromwell began with an assembly. Principal Jim Manley, in a bright red Bromwell T-shirt, led the children in songs and introduced them to the entire staff, down to the custodians.
"They scrub the floor and the ceiling. They turn the tables over and scrub the bottoms of the tables," Manley said of custodians Pat Perez and Harold Bastings. "I've never seen a building so clean." The children all cheered.
Then Manley introduced them to the real world. No chewing gum, he warned. No eating in class.
"And never bring any weapons to school. You may not think of a water gun as a weapon, but I do," he said. Manley also warncd the children that they are going to have to learn "self-responsibility" this year, beginning with a policy against loans by his office to children who forget their lunch money.
"If you forget your lunch money, there's a consequence," he said, although "the first few times, I'll give you money for crackers and milk, so you won't go hungry."
MANLEY CONCEDED LATER
it was a little silly to warn children like 3-foot-tall Nicole about weapons, but a district wide policy, adopted by the Board of Education last spring, requires the weapons rule to be read.
Some students actually were suspended at Bromwell last year when they made darts out of pins, one teacher said. Another child last year filled his squirt gun with liquid bleach, the same teacher recalled.
Manley also said he was bluffing on the lunch money - he won't let a child miss lunch.
By midmorning, Nicole had made friends with Lashone, and at the end of' the day, Nicole rode home, crammed into a seat with third-graders Sheri Young and Geisel Robinson, who had taken her under their wings.
Nicole said she liked everything at Bromwell, including her teacher, Euralia Leal, and even the crackers and water served for a snack.
And when the bus stopped at 28th and Oneida at 1:20 p.m., Nicole came running off to tell her mother that she had met many of the same kids she knew at the "Y" last summer.
DWINDLING DIVERSITY
In the post-busing era, Denver Public Schools
marked by tendency of ethnic groups to cluster
By Holly Yettick, Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer
May 26th, 2001
Open enrollment and population trends have reshaped
the ethnic mix of Denver Public Schools in the
half-decade since busing ended. As a result, Denver schools are growing less diverse.
A Rocky Mountain News analysis of ethnic
enrollment and school choice data found that DPS
today has fewer Anglos than ever, and many of them
are using open enrollment to cluster in schools where
they remain the largest ethnic group. Black students
also are clustering at a few neighborhood and charter
schools.
At the same time, the number of Hispanic students is
increasing rapidly. Many are moving into historically
Anglo or black schools, making those schools more
diverse. But at predominantly Hispanic schools,
diversity is vanishing in the post-busing era.
Busing began in Denver in 1974, after the U.S.
Supreme Court found the Denver school system was
an unconstitutional "dual" system and ordered
districtwide desegregation.
Crosstown integration of black, Anglo and Hispanic children continued through
September 1995, when U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch ruled Denver had wiped out
the "vestiges of past discrimination . . . to the extent practicable."
Elementary school students stopped riding buses the following fall, at the start of the
1996-97 school year. Middle and high school students followed one year later.
Irv Moskowitz, superintendent at the time, welcomed the decision to end busing in
Denver as a "marvelous opportunity," a chance to "redefine public education in an urban
setting."
But Aaron Gray, then school board president, was less positive.
"It's going to be very difficult," he said at the time. "But we were elected to find a way
to change this district, and the tools to change the district are presented to us."
ANGLO ENROLLMENT STEADILY FALLS
At least one thing has not changed. Anglo enrollment has continued to decline, dropping
10 percent since 1996, while the school district's overall enrollment has grown 7
percent.
Although busing is frequently blamed for white flight, DPS' Anglo enrollment had
begun to decline when the district started keeping records by ethnicity and race in 1963,
11 years before busing started.
In 1963, there were more than 69,000 Anglo students enrolled in the district. By 1995,
that had dropped to fewer than 18,000.
The pace of attrition slowed a bit right after busing ended. But it has since accelerated.
This school year Anglo students accounted for 15,634 of DPS' total enrollment of
70,955.
Much of the trend is because of recent changes in birthrates. Between 1990 and 1995, when most of today's elementary school children were born,
the number of Anglo babies born in Denver dropped 14 percent. The decline was not nearly as steep in the suburbs. The number of Anglo babies born in
four of the suburban counties fell between 1 percent and 8 percent, and rapidly growing
Douglas County saw a 47 percent increase in the number of Anglo babies between 1990
and 1995.
In the metro area, Anglos now make up about two-thirds of the total population and the
public school enrollment. In Denver, however, Anglos make up more than half the
population but just 22 percent of the school enrollment.
That reflects a national pattern. A recent study of census data by researchers at the State
University of New York at Albany showed that white families with school-age children
still tend to favor the suburbs even as childless whites are settling in integrated urban
neighborhoods.
Barbara Kaczmarek, who is Anglo, sends her children to Lincoln Elementary, a diverse
school in Denver's Washington Park West neighborhood.
She said she watched about 20 members of her Washington Park/Baker baby-sitting
co-op leave the city for the suburbs during the two years she was a member.
"It's probably both that the houses are bigger and the schools have a better reputation,"
she said. "In The Preppy Handbook they even address it," she said, referring to Lisa
Birnbach's popular 1981 satire. "They say, move to the city when you're young and
then, when you have a family, move to the suburbs."
Julie Heasley, an Anglo parent at Denver's predominantly Anglo Cory Elementary in the
Cory/Merrill neighborhood, believes many of those parents make up their minds against
Denver schools before they do their homework.
"They run with the crowd," she said. "People say, how can you stay in DPS? I say, I'm
not running with the crowd until I'm sure it's right."
ANGLO SCHOOLS ATTRACT TRANSFERS
During the busing era, students could transfer to another neighborhood school only if the
transfer contributed to that school's diversity. Now students may transfer to any
neighborhood school that has space.
The News analysis shows that, of the 13 neighborhood schools that draw about a third
or more of their enrollment from outside their boundaries, Anglo students are the largest
ethnic group at 11 of them. Black students form the largest group at the other two.
Though in the minority in DPS, Anglos are the predominant group in five of the 11
charter and magnet schools, which draw from all over the city instead of from a single
neighborhood. Four of these schools are predominantly Hispanic; two are predominantly
black.
Hispanics are DPS' biggest demographic group, accounting for 53 percent of the
district's enrollment. But only 22 percent of magnet school enrollment is Hispanic, and
Hispanics are not the primary group in any of the neighborhood schools attracting the
most "choice" students.
Anglo parent Jean Price says she's concerned about the lack of diversity at her children's
school, Bromwell Elementary in the Cherry Creek neighborhood. At the school,
students "choicing in" represent 56 percent of the student body, and Anglo enrollment
has increased in the past five years to 88 percent of the student population.
"I think diversity is part of a valuable experience," Price said. "It's something we really
struggle with because DPS hasn't left us with the tools to promote diversity."
The school was somewhat more diverse in the years immediately after busing, when
students who had been attending Bromwell under the desegregation order still got free
transportation. But Denver schools officials said so few children took advantage of it that
they discontinued the program.
Denver School Board President Elaine Berman thinks the patterns are more a matter of
class than race.
In the past decade, the percentage of DPS children qualifying for free or reduced-price
lunches has risen from 40 to 70 percent. Blacks make up about a fifth of the children in
this group, just as they make up a fifth of the total district enrollment. But Anglos are
underrepresented and Hispanics are over-represented.
"Middle-class parents are concerned that if they send their children to a school where
they feel other students are struggling that their children will be overlooked or the
standards won't be as high because more attention will be given to other students,"
Berman said. "I think if a parent knew the students were performing at a high level, I
don't think anyone cares about the color of the children."
Although she believes students benefit from diverse schools, she's not sure what the
school board can do about it.
"It is human nature," she said, "for people, whether it's adults or children, to associate
with people who are similar to themselves."
HISPANIC ENROLLMENT GROWING RAPIDLY
While Anglo enrollment declines, Hispanic enrollment is rising sharply in DPS.
Thirty-seven of Denver's 127 schools are at least three-quarters Hispanic.
Much of this is because of a boom in Denver's Hispanic population, which has increased
63 percent since 1990 to 175,704, or 32 percent of the city's current population.
Schools in many neighborhoods have changed dramatically. In Harvey Park in
southwest Denver, for example, Kunsmiller Middle School has gone from 47 percent
Hispanic in 1996 to 74 percent Hispanic this year.
Other neighborhoods that already were predominantly Hispanic have become more so.
In northwest Denver, Northern Sunnyside is 84 percent Hispanic, and Elyria Swansea is
83 percent.
The change should come as no surprise, said Rufina Hernandez, executive director of
the Latin American Research and Service Agency in Denver.
"We have a higher birthrate. (Denver) has a close proximity to the Mexican border. We
have a lot of Latinos here. The growth of our economy demands a high labor force to be
available," she said.
At its fringes, the Hispanic expansion is diversifying neighborhoods that used to be
heavily Anglo or black. Despite clustering by Anglo and black students, only a quarter of
the schools that were predominantly Anglo four years ago have a higher percentage of
Anglos today, and only a fifth of the schools that were predominantly black are more
heavily black today.
Frank Davis is a junior at Manual High School in the West City Park neighborhood. The
Hispanic population in the once-predominantly black school has increased from 14
percent to 60 percent in the past five years. Davis, who considers himself both
African-American and Latino, says social life at the school is changing.
"My freshman year, it seemed like everything was pretty separate," Davis said. "We've
started to grow together. At the dances, we're starting to play Hispanic music. We let the
students request songs. They try to get the Hispanic students more involved."
At the core of the Hispanic population in west Denver, however, there is little diversity.
In 1996, Hispanic students made up the largest demographic group at 53 schools.
Today, 80 percent of those schools are more heavily Hispanic. Twelve schools are at
least 90 percent Hispanic.
The pattern is not unique to Denver.
"Latinos in public schools are the most segregated population in the public schools," said
Raul Gonzales, education policy director for the National Council of La Raza in
Washington, D.C.
The growing lack of diversity disturbs Luis Torres, who heads DPS' Hispanic
Education Advisory Council.
"I'm an old-time integrationist," he said. "I think it's very important for people of
different ethnicities and cultural groups to work together and go to school together and
partake of recreation together."
But others say their children are experiencing diversity outside of school.
Donaciano Archuleta's son attends Valdez Elementary in north Denver, the school with
the highest percentage of Hispanics in the district, 95.5 percent. Archuleta regrets that
the boy is not experiencing the diversity he and his wife knew as DPS students during
court-ordered busing.
But he said his son meets people of different races and ethnicities through the Kingdom
Hall Jehovah's Witness church the family attends and even in the Archuletas'
predominantly Hispanic north Denver neighborhood.
Hernandez of the LARASA said that Latinos, a minority in the larger society, are not
growing up isolated. It is Anglos who need more diversity, she said.
TRANSPORTATION CAN BE A PROBLEM
Former school board president Gray, who now runs DPS community relations, says he
is disappointed that so few Hispanic students have taken advantage of school choice and
charter schools.
Transportation, he said, has proven to be an obstacle. "Without transportation, choice is
not a choice for many families," Gray said.
Students get free school bus rides from anywhere in Denver to most of the district's
magnet programs. But to attend a charter school or a neighborhood school other than
their own, students must provide transportation.
"Another problem with Latinos not exercising choice is not getting the information," said
Gonzalez of the National Council of La Rasa. "Very often, information is passed by
someone in the school system to someone in the community because they want their
friends' kids to get into these schools. Word of mouth is not a fair system."
DPS public information director Mark Stevens says his office tries hard to publicize
choice options to everyone.
News releases go to local media, including Spanish language outlets. An eight-page
publication goes home with every student. Schools can request as many copies as they
need in Spanish and they request thousands, Stevens said. Community groups, city
council members, libraries and other organizations also get copies of the publication.
Still, he said, "I constantly run into parents who are unaware they have options."
The language barrier contributes to the situation.
Valdez Principal Tom Archuleta says many parents in his community feel they have no
option other than the neighborhood school even if they are aware of magnets and
charters.
"Our community doesn't leave because they're all monolingual Spanish speakers and
only so many schools can teach them," Archuleta said. "Why leave the neighborhood
when you have schools in the neighborhood that can teach them?"
As the schools adapt to the Spanish-speaking population, the language barrier can
become more isolating because there is little need to learn English, said Manual Principal
Nancy Sutton.
"You don't have as much opportunity to practice," she said. "There's not that compelling
issue."
Other neighborhood ties tend to discourage choice.
Michael Bautista heads the Kenneth King Academic and Performing Arts Center on the
Auraria campus. But for eight years in the '90s he was in charge of the Denver School of
the Arts, a magnet school that offers free transportation.
During his first two years with DSA, he tried to encourage Hispanics to enroll by
holding auditions in predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods.
"I wish I could say I was more successful," he said. "One thing about Hispanics is,
family is very important to them. To pull them out of the neighborhood is very difficult
because family is so important."
Bautista, who is Hispanic, says he felt that way when he left behind his own family in
his hometown, Kansas City.
"It's a very close-knit culture," he said. "People depend on each other. Once you're out
of it, you don't feel the support. Parents can be afraid their child could be harassed or
made fun of."
Despite the developing trends, Gray continues to believe neighborhood schools are the
answer for DPS.
"Even for communities of color . . . I don't hear that busing is a concern," Gray said.
"The search is now to make each neighborhood school a quality school."
He points to the district's offer to provide free busing to relieve overcrowding in the
Montbello area.
Nine collaborative decision-making committees, all from "majority minority" schools,
gave their answer loud and clear.
It was a resounding "no."
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