State Court to Continue Overseeing City Schools’ Integration Program : Education: Judge rules against citizens group that wanted to end the court’s supervision of the district.

The state will maintain its jurisdiction over student integration efforts in the San Diego Unified School District, a Superior Court judge ruled Thursday after a brief hearing on a request by longtime opponents to terminate the program.

San Diego County Superior Court Judge Arthur W. Jones said he heard no compelling argument to end the court’s oversight of the program.

In particular, Jones noted that the court gave up detailed monitoring in 1985, and today only receives annual reports and holds semi-annual informal meetings with school officials and other interested parties to review progress toward improving minority achievement.

The role now “is more of a mediator or observer rather than directing actions by the parties,” Jones said.

A group of citizens called Groundswell had petitioned the court to end its supervision, arguing that a need no longer exists because the school district has attempted in good faith to meet all the court orders. As a result, the group contended, a return to complete local control is justified.

Groundswell has long opposed the district’s integration efforts, even though the program involves voluntary and not forced busing, both because it fears the potential for mandatory student assignments and because its members have seen little resulting academic benefit for black and Latino students over the years.

In addition, attorney Elmer Enstrom Jr., representing Groundswell, argued that the plaintiffs who first alleged in a 1967 lawsuit that there was a segregated and unequal school system no longer have constitutional grounds to push for any school assignments based solely on race.

The filing of Groundswell’s petition followed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this spring that reduced requirements for school districts seeking to end or moderate monitoring by federal courts.

But Jones agreed with arguments put forward by the school district that said continued court supervision is not burdensome, and that the integration program, because it is voluntary, does not use race as the sole criterion for an equal education.

Jones said he had no evidence before him of violations of student rights after Enstrom brought up past instances of Asian-American students not being allowed to participate in special integration magnet programs because their presence would not increase the number of whites in minority schools.

“I see no issue on this. . . . I have no specifics,” Jones said, adding that no student is forced either into or out of a special integration program.

The centerpiece of integration efforts involves 40 magnet education programs--almost all of them in schools south of Interstate 8 and heavily nonwhite--as lures for white students in other areas to attend.

In addition, nonwhite students are allowed to voluntarily attend predominantly white schools in the city’s northern and coastline areas.

There also are special weekly classes in Old Town and Balboa Park, and a camp on Palomar Mountain where students of different races from the fourth through sixth grades attend together to learn about California history, conservation and the outdoors.

About 80% of the program’s cost, or $46 million, is paid by state school integration funds.