NATION IN BRIEF : FLORIDA : Blacks Skip School to Protest Hiring

Black students stayed away from school in Florida’s rural Jefferson County for the second day to protest the hiring of a white teacher. The dispute arose when the county missed the quota it had set for hiring black teachers for this school year. Hours after the student boycott began, the Jefferson County School Board voted to hire a black teacher for the next expected vacancy. About 36% of Jefferson’s public schoolteachers are black. About 70% of the county’s 2,100 students are black, and about 1,200 stayed out of school on the first day of the boycott.