HUNTINGTON BEACH : District to Rethink Desegregation Plan

Responding to a state court ruling that relaxes racial desegregation requirements for schools, Ocean View School District officials are considering scaling back a sweeping integration plan the Board of Trustees approved last spring.

A state court of appeals decision in June involving the Long Beach Unified School District may mean that Ocean View need not desegregate districtwide, said Paul Mercier, assistant superintendent for educational services.

The June decision ordered the state to reimburse the Long Beach district for the full amount it had spent on its desegregation efforts. As a result, the state Board of Education repealed most of its regulations governing school desegregation, upon which Ocean View’s integration plan had been based.

School districts with racial imbalances must still make “reasonable and feasible efforts to integrate,” as required under the state Constitution, but a district is no longer required to enroll a certain percentage of minority students at each of its schools, as long as general, long-term efforts toward desegregation are being made.

“In general, school districts now have much more latitude” on how they approach racial desegregation, Mercier said.

The landmark state ruling came a few weeks after Ocean View trustees enacted a school-level reorganization plan that included districtwide integration.

As it stands, that plan, due to go into effect a year from now, would close Crest View Elementary School and radically overhaul Oak View Elementary’s population, while improving the ethnic balance in schools districtwide.

Board members enacted that plan in hopes of balancing the district’s growing population of minority students. The district, however, has not been ordered by the state to desegregate.

With the revised state regulations, Ocean View trustees are scheduled Tuesday to ask their integration advisory committee to review the plan. The committee tentatively plans to meet Oct. 8 to consider a new approach.

Among the issues to be discussed, committee members and school board trustees will consider eliminating an Oak View magnet program aimed at attracting more white students to that largely Latino school, Mercier said.

Because the district is no longer required to meet racial quotas under its integration plan, that magnet program may be unnecessary, he said.

Mercier added, however, that Ocean View will continue pursuing desegregation districtwide.

“This district is absolutely committed to proceeding with integration. Now, it’s just a matter of how we’re going to do it,” Mercier said. “Every year, this district has seen an increase in minority students, and we have to address that.”