Schools Reflect County’s Steadily Growing Minority Population

About a decade ago, only one of every five students at Willmore Elementary School in Westminster was a member of a racial or ethnic minority.

Now the situation is completely reversed. Four of every five students at Willmore are either Asian, Hispanic, American Indian or black.

Willmore Elementary is a dramatic example of a steady trend that has changed the face of Orange County since the mid-1970s as minority populations substantially increased in the north, west and central sectors of the county.

In the Anaheim and Santa Ana school systems, minority students are now in the majority.

However, the southern and coastal areas of the county have remained virtually unchanged--that is to say, nearly all white.

In the county as a whole, white students made up 85.9% of the public school population during the 1973-74 school year, according to statistics compiled by the county Department of Education.

But by 1984, white students had declined to 66.9% of the population, according to a similar survey to be published this week.

During that same period, the Hispanic student population almost doubled, going from 11.2% to 21.1%. And Asian students, who in 1973-74 accounted for only 1.6%, have increased to 9.6%. The county’s black population of 1.8% in 1984-85 compares to 1.1% in 1973-74.

Laguna Unified School District has a 95.8% white enrollment, down slightly from 1973-74’s 96.3% but still a higher percentage of white students than any other Orange County school district.

School officials attribute the changing demographics to migration of minority households from the Los Angeles area coupled with immigration from south of the border and Southeast Asia.

The availability of work for unskilled laborers and the comparatively less expensive housing in the older parts of the county were cited as likely reasons minorities have settled in communities like Anaheim, Garden Grove and Westminster, rather than Irvine and Mission Viejo.

But with the new ethnic and racial minorities have come problems for schools, chief among them meeting the language and cultural needs of new Hispanic and Asian students.

And while language apparently is no longer an obstacle to education in heavily Vietnamese Willmore School, Westminster Elementary School District trustees felt that cultural isolation could be. As a result, trustees voted in February to close Willmore and bus its predominantly minority students in the fall to five campuses where white students remain the vast majority. (Overall, 41.5% of Westminster district students are minorities, compared with 13.5% eleven years ago.)

By busing Willmore students, trustees hope to increase the students’ “chances of becoming Americanized,” Supt. Donald Stuckey said. Vietnamese parents opposed the busing, which will begin next fall, but the measure passed by a 4-1 vote in February, he said.

Asian students, who account for 275 of Willmore’s 390 minority students, appear to have adequately mastered English, according to Stuckey.

“They caught on very very quickly,” he said. “I’d say the language is not a barrier now.”

But he said trustees hope the Vietnamese will more quickly move into the mainstream if they are not concentrated at one school.

“The total emphasis is for these children to learn English and assimilate our American culture,” he said. “It is not to perpetuate the Vietnamese culture.”

Busing Was Opposed

Though the students’ Vietnamese parents “are most eager and anxious to become Americans,” he said, they opposed closing Willmore because it meant busing their children.

In the Anaheim City Elementary School District, trustees similarly bused students when they closed Washington Elementary School in the mid-1970s, according to Supt. James Brier.

Minority children were bused not to the closest schools, he said, but “a little further” to campuses where they did not result in a disproportionate minority enrollment, he said. Parents did not protest that move, he said.

Growing minority enrollments also have created a shortage of teachers credentialed to teach bilingual education. The state Department of Education for years has granted waivers to hundreds of teachers in Orange County, permitting them to teach bilingual classes while working toward the standards for a credential.

The shortage of credentialed bilingual teachers has compounded the shortages of teachers in math and science, said Supt. Ed Dundon of the Garden Grove Unified School District, where minority enrollment has increased from 15.2% in 1973-74 to 45.6%.

Bilingual Class Problems

In the Anaheim City School District, where minority enrollment has reached 50.6% compared to 16.9% in 1973-74, “complying with the bilingual education laws is the greatest challenge,” Supt. Brier said.

“We’ve had a few teachers that have been successful (in obtaining credentials), but even after several years of taking Spanish, several teachers can’t pass the test,” he said.

Of 410 classes in the district, there are 173 bilingual classes and only 23 teachers with bilingual credentials, he said.

“The need keeps growing,” he said. “You’re on kind of a sand hill, climbing up. But we keep making the effort.”

In Santa Ana, minority students were 50.8% of the district’s 27,000 enrollment even in 1973-74. But increasing enrollment, due primarily to an influx of Hispanics, many of them illegal aliens, has driven minority enrollment to 85% of the 35,200 students now in the district.

“In the state, only Los Angeles (Unified School District) has more limited-English speaking students than Santa Ana,” said Anthony Dalessi, director of categorical programs for the Santa Ana district.

More Rapid Increase

Though the increase in minority students has been substantial, he said, the percentage of students with limited mastery of English has increased at a more rapid rate.

About 1,000 new children a year enroll in the district and qualify for bilingual and English-as-second-language classes.

“The ethnic and racial count doesn’t really mean too much anymore,” he said. “But what it reflects is the change in language programs. There are only about 20% of our students whose first and only language is English.”

About “150 of the district’s 650 elementary teachers have bilingual credentials and another 300-plus are . . . taking course work to obtain a credential . . . (and are) in varying levels of learning Spanish,” he said.

The district attempts “to maintain English-only classes on each grade level at every school, but sometimes it’s just not possible to do so,” he said. The overwhelming numbers of Hispanic minorities indirectly have had an effect on some of the district’s black and white students.

“Parents have a legal right to opt for their child not to be in a bilingual program,” Dalessi said. “Many parents who are concerned with their children being in a bilingual program” have opted to enroll their sons and daughters instead in the district’s three fundamental schools, where discipline and basics are stressed, he said.

Enrollment Shift

These figures represent a dramatic increase in ethnic and racial minorities in Orange County’s public schools over the past 11 years. During the period, the white enrollment in north, west and central areas of the county substantially declined, although southern and coastal schools remained predominantly white.

1973-74 Students Percent White 327,023 85.9 Latino 42,810 11.2 Asian 6,035 1.6 Black 4,003 1.1 Amer. Indian 804 0.2 Total 380,675 Source: Orange County Department of Education.

1984-85

Students Percent Change

White 222,952 66.9 -31.8%

Latino 70,602 21.1 +64.9%

Asian 31,850 9.6 +427.7% Black 6,010 1.8 +50.1%

Amer. Indian 1,641 0.5 +104.1% Total 333,055 -12.5%

Source: Orange County Department of Education.