Black Parents Pursue Magnet Issue : U.S. Officical, Teachers Try to Resolve Gompers Dispute

Longstanding tensions between black parents and Gompers Secondary School teachers surfaced at two forums Monday, as parents voiced a long list of complaints to a U.S. Department of Justice official during the day and met with teachers Monday night in an attempt to resolve the situation.

Five parents told Vermont McKinney, a conciliation specialist for the Justice Department’s Community Relations Service, of growing concern in the black community that their children are being segregated out of the upper-level courses in Gompers’ prestigious science, math and computer magnet program.

Their complaints are supported by a recent school system study, which found “resegregation” at the Southeast San Diego campus. The study found that the predominately minority students who live near the school are vastly underrepresented in the accelerated and honors courses that have given the school its reputation as one of the city’s best. The magnet was opened in 1978 as part of the district’s desegregation effort.

The parents also complained that teachers are flunking black students at a much higher rate than their white counterparts--though they were unsure of the validity of the statistics they offered as proof.

“They’re tearing these kids down,” said Arnie Belle, mother of a seventh grader at Gompers. “They don’t want them to progress. We just want our children to progress like the magnet children progress.”

The wide-ranging, 90-minute meeting--at the Educational Cultural Complex--included black parents of students at three schools and a representative from the San Diego Urban League. It also touched on complaints about Lincoln High School and the district’s Voluntary Ethnic Enrollment Program busing program.

At both meetings, parents were irritated by their belief that some white teachers at Gompers have refused to meet with them about their classroom concerns and have treated them rudely. Other teachers, they said, insisted that a union representative or other third party be present during any conference--a condition not being set for meetings with white parents.

“Whenever we request a conference, they have to have a representative from SDTA (the San Diego Teachers Assn.),” said Gladys Knight, mother of a ninth grader at Gompers. “I asked our illustrious superintendent (Thomas Payzant) if, whenever I have a conference, I need a lawyer.”

At the evening meeting at Gompers, 10 members of the community group which advises the administration met with three teachers and school administrators to address an 11-point list of concerns drawn up by parents and a 9-point list written by teachers.

SDTA President Gail Boyle, who has been meeting with teachers for the past two weeks in an effort to smooth over resentments at Gompers, said a few teachers have felt intimidated by angry black parents and have believed they had no choice but to insist on the presence of a third party at conferences. Parents have threatened to take complaints to the American Civil Liberties Union or file lawsuits, she said.

Boyle said teachers are puzzled by the sudden outpouring of longstanding complaints and want to resolve them. But when they have tried to explain that whites are flunking at the same rate as blacks, parents refused to listen, she said.

“They have some ideas about what might help, and no one is listening to them,” she said. “It has all become a racial issue.”

The bad feeling has escalated in recent weeks, triggered by a black mother’s complaint that her daughter was unfairly left off a team of Gompers students that competed in a national science competition, Boyle said.

“I don’t think the situation has a right and a wrong,” she said. “I don’t think we have someone who is aggrieved and someone who is the aggressor. I believe that the lines of communication have broken down.”

Boyle said she is hoping to arrange some kind of mediation session between parents and teachers, the same approach that McKinney will follow. He was scheduled to meet later Monday with Bertha Pendleton, Payzant’s special assistant. McKinney’s department, created under the 1964 Civil Rights Act to help conciliate ethnic and racial conflicts, has no enforcement powers over the city school system, he said.

But black parents have scheduled a picket for Friday morning, when buses bringing students from across the city arrive at the school.

Organizers said they called for the demonstration because Payzant has not responded to some letters from parents and a May 28 letter from the Committee for the Education of Black Children, which advises him.