Dear Community:
You are cordially invited to participate in a roundtable discussion on the topic of:
THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION FOR BLACK CHILDREN IN PITT COUNTY SCHOOLS: Re-Segregation and Unitary Status.
The discussion will be held on Saturday, February 19, 2011 at 10:00 a.m. in the Leslie Building at Pitt Community College.
Over the past 10 years the achievement gap between black and white students in Pitt County Schools has widened. On average, Black students score about 150 points below white students on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), reducing their chances of entering and completing college. Black students are disproportionately placed on out of school suspension for minor subjective offenses, reducing the amount of time actually spent in classroom instruction. Pitt County Schools’ high school test scores declined over the past six years and black students disproportionately drop out of high school. Some believe that black students are worse off today than they were ten years ago.
In the past, the black community vigorously fought against segregation and racial isolation and won substantial gains in court or through the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division and gained the rights to have elected representation on local boards and commissions, including the Pitt County Board of Education.
On November 15, 2010, the Pitt County Board of Education voted 7-4 to re-segregate three schools located in the City of Greenville and one school in Winterville. These three Greenville city schools were crafted, by the Board of Education, to be low income, low achieving, under resourced, racially identifiable black schools starting during the 2011-2012 school year. The black community was visibly absent from participation in the process and the three African American elected school board members led the vote along with four whites to re-segregate black children. This has raised a policy discussion within the black community as to where the black community stands on the future of the education of black children in Pitt County Schools.
The Pitt County Coalition for Educating Black Children along with its legal counsels is presently reviewing whether to mount a federal court challenge to the school board’s decision to re-segregate and need to hear the views of the black community and its leadership before committing substantial resources to a court challenge. We need to know whether the black community wants re-segregation or not, and how you feel black children will be impacted by this recent school board decision.
Please come out and participate in this important event.
Pitt County Coalition for Educating Black Children
Executive Committee
Ozie Lee Hall, Jr.
President
Rose H. Glover
1st Vice President
Melissa Grimes
2nd Vice President
Caroline Sutton
Executive Committee Member
R.J. Hemby
Executive Committee Member
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