Brown v. Board of Education: 65 Years Later. Promise Unfulfilled.

Sunday, April 28, 2019

PROMISE UNFULFILLED

B R O W N V. B O A R D O F E D U C AT I O N : 6 5 Y E A R S L AT E R

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INSIDE Page 4: Topeka schools still trying to dismantle disparities

Page 8: Discussion about race in schools came late in Garden City

Page 11: Pittsburg schools focus on programs, help to all students in need

Page 14: Newton district's staff not reflective of growing student diversity

Page 17: Challenge in Hays lies in funding special education

Page 19: Teachers must face their own biases on race, diversity

Page 23: Addressing minority underrepresentation in teaching ranks

Page 25: Human rights advocates in schools seek LGBTQ protections

Page 27: Pierce Addition school overlooked in Topeka desegregation struggle

Page 31: Living without anger

Page 35: Couple recounts impact on Hispanic community

Page 36: In 1954, students felt impact of integration in Topeka elementary schools

Page 38: Biographers debate Eisenhower's effect on desegregation

Page 40: Topeka's other Brown landmark deteriorating

Page 42: Play recounts pivotal role of Topekans in Brown v. Board case

Page 43: KTWU documentary features alumni of Topeka's segregated schools

Page 45: Court nudges public schools toward equitable educational opportunity

Page 47: List of events happening in May for anniversary

B R O W N V. B OA R D O F E D U C AT I O N : 6 5 Y E A R S L AT E R

PROMISE UNFULFILLED

T

he Brown v. Board of Education decision has been felt by every child and family in the U.S. since 1954.

But its promise remains unfulfilled as systemic challenges persist and new dynamics emerge.

An EdBuild report published earlier this year found nonwhite districts across the country get $23 billion less than white districts despite serving the same number of students. In Kansas, predominately nonwhite districts have 12 percent less funding on average than predominately white districts. Forty-six

percent of the state’s students attend racially isolated school districts.

“While the education system has made a lot of progress over the years, a commitment to ensuring equality for all students has to remain at the forefront of the work of every educator and policymaker,” said Dale Dennis, deputy commissioner with the Kansas State Department of Education.

GateHouse Kansas takes a look at districts across the state to find out how schools continue to confront the elusive goal of equity in an era of funding uncertainties and growing diversity.

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PROMISE UNFULFILLED: TOPEKA USD 501

Topeka schools still trying to dismantle disparities

By Katie Moore The Capital-Journal

S

ixty-five years after Brown v. Board of Education opened the doors to equity, Topeka’s public schools continue working to dismantle disparities in who takes advanced courses and who gets disciplined.

Jacob Gernon, a junior who identifies as white, said he noticed the student makeup in his advanced placement courses doesn’t represent Topeka High’s demographics.

“For example, my AP physics class, there’s like 12 people in there, so not a whole lot,” he said. “There’s no people of color.”

Other AP classes have some minorities, but they appear to still be underrepresented.

Gernon finds that problematic in a school that is majority-minority. White students can benefit from AP classes to push themselves further up in society, he said, but minorities need that too or even more.

The school also holds honors assemblies to recognize students with a 3.5 GPA or higher.

“It’s pretty white-washed,” Gernon said.

According to civil rights data collection from the U.S. Department of Education, in 2015, the most recent year data is available, white students accounted for 43 percent of Topeka High’s enrollment and 70 percent of the gifted program.

“I think those statistics match up, at least what I see at my school,” Gernon said.

Data provided from the

Jacob Gernon, a junior at Topeka High School, said minorities are underrepresented in the AP classes he is enrolled in.

[THAD ALLTON/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

district for 2017-18 indicates that 68 percent — or 75 of the 111 gifted students — were white. Fifteen students were Hispanic, 13 multiracial, four black, three Asian and one Native American.

Exposure to others promotes awareness and tolerance,

Gernon said. That opportunity may be diminished when classes aren’t reflective of the student population.

Gernon said he would like to see students be encouraged to take difficult courses from an early age and for teachers to encourage bright students.

“I feel like some teachers probably don’t make a good enough effort for kids of color,” he said.

At Jardine Middle School, Jayla Webb, said she feels like some of the teachers don’t treat minorities equally.

“They single us out,” the

seventh-grader said.

If a black student wears a hoodie or a bandana, they have to take it off because teachers think it is gangrelated, but they don’t tell the white students that, she said. When a black student is sent to the office, they get an

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out-of-school suspension, but a white student is sent back to class, she said.

According to the civil rights data, black students made up 23 percent of the middle school’s enrollment and 38 percent of the out-of-school suspensions. White students accounted for 42 percent of the students and 33 percent of out-of-school suspensions.

Finding equity Topeka Public Schools superintendent Tiffany Anderson said she has worked to make the district more equitable since taking over in fall 2016. One example has been to remove financial barriers in taking the ACT and AP tests.

“The excuses that zip codes can determine your destiny is not an option in Topeka Public Schools or in any district,” Anderson said. “It simply cannot, and if we allow for zip codes to determine where kids end up, then the whole goal behind integration has not had the impact that we would want it to have. We want every student to have the opportunity to succeed at the highest level.”

Members of the district’s equity council have focused on the school-to-prison pipeline this year, visiting the county’s juvenile detention center.

Anderson said Unified School District 501’s police department has examined what kind of consequences are being handed down and what impact that may have if a student becomes part of the criminal justice system. The district is also revisiting its approaches to behavior and trauma.

The equity council expanded this year by establishing youth equity councils at each school.

“We have to be prepared to address issues of privilege and understand those, be willing to have the courageous conversation that leads to action both on an adult

Superintendent Tiffany Anderson says she is striving to make Topeka Unified School District 501 district more equitable.

[THAD ALLTON/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

level and a young adult level in the classrooms,” Anderson said.

Diversity and inclusion are embedded in curriculum and hiring, she said. The district has expanded its recruiting efforts, traveling as far as Puerto Rico to hire teachers for its dual-language program.

Poverty is often at the root of differences in opportunity.

Schools in the district have taken a holistic approach by integrating services like food pantries, clothing banks, laundry facilities and health care programs.

“In many cities, which includes Topeka, there’s a high minority, high poverty

population, so as we unpack that, we really are looking at what are the opportunity gaps that students of color or students who may not have English as a first language face,” Anderson said.

Finding success Despite systemic challenges,

Anderson pointed to significant successes. In 2018, the racial achievement gap in graduation rates closed, according to district data.

At Washburn Rural High School, teacher Chris Exum started a black student union club in fall 2017 after conversations with principal Ed Raines. Exum had observed a

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lack of ACT participation and low scores.

“I would like to see just an overall fairness and openness to giving every kid equal opportunity and information,” he said. “Don’t just assume because a kid has a rough background, be it black or white, they shouldn’t have a chance to be told about an honors course or about college.”

The club was initially a safe haven where members could talk about social issues happening in the school building and nationally. Participants also have the opportunity to discuss tactful approaches for dealing with situations when it comes to racism, Exum said, particularly at a school that is primarily white.

“I think it’s really just a way to raise awareness for us, people of color, like us being as a group, like somewhere we can talk and be comfortable, express our feelings,” said freshman Kayceona Armstrong.

Raines said before the creation of the club, Black History Month wasn’t celebrated in a significant way.

Now during the month of February they have daily announcements, speakers and posters.

During a recent club meeting, Exum asked how many students were told to take an advanced placement class.

Four students raised their hands in a room with about 25 students.

“Every year, we have this problem,” Exum said.

According to the civil rights data, in 2015, zero black students were enrolled in the gifted program. Blacks were also underrepresented in calculus, chemistry and physics.

In the Auburn-Washburn school district, sixth-graders are given a math placement test.

“How they do on that test largely determines their math sequence from the end of their sixth grade year until they graduate from high school,”

Washburn Rural HIgh School principal Ed Raines discusses efforts to get minorities enrolled in advanced classes. [THAD ALLTON/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

Raines said. “Lots of times, minority kids perform lower on those assessments, and so they get tracked into lower classes. Consequently, they don’t get to the upper level mathematics, which isn’t to say we don’t push kids to take the highest level course that they’re capable of being successful in, but it’s a complicated problem.”

Raines said the school has engaged in one-on-one conversations with students to communicate the belief they can succeed in honors classes.

“It’s just a lot of times they think they can be successful in there because no one has ever communicated that they can be successful in there,” he said.

At the same time, there is outreach with parents during enrollment.

Closing the gap Raines said ACT scores for minority students has increased. In 2015, the average score for black students was 18.8. It rose to 20 last year. The average score for Hispanic students rose 0.3 points and for students who identify as two or more races, the score increased from 22.9 to 24.2.

However minorities were overrepresented in in-school and out-of-school suspensions. Though blacks made up 4.9 percent of the student population in 2015, they accounted for 16 percent of the in-school suspensions and 21 percent of the out-of-school-suspensions.

“We respond to kids who are misbehaving, to kids who violate policy when it’s

brought to administration’s attention pretty consistently,” Raines said. “Now whether or not kids are being disproportionately referred — I’d like to think that’s not happening, but I think it’s misguided to infer anything from those numbers.”

Raines said that number has since dropped to 13 percent for both categories.

During the club’s discussion, the students considered the topic.

One student said he noticed the school resource officers congregate in the hallway where a lot of minority students gather.

Raines refuted that, saying the reason the officers concentrate in that location was because it was a main intersection.

“I think it’s unfortunate that

they feel that way,” he said.

Exum said some teachers were likely raised in a suburban area like the one WRHS serves.

“They see this coming in, so they’re just a little bit nervous and anxious and so out of the gate, they already have that guard built up,” he said. “So what happens is, if a kid gets a little combative, like even a small amount, it’s just boom, referral. So if I had to take the ‘problem’ out of my classroom, I can then feel comfortable in my environment to then teach kids who are like me.”

Armstrong agreed that cultural differences may be misunderstood.

“Growing up in neighborhoods and around my family, there’s no reason for me to act as people would say, ‘white,’”

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Kayceona Armstrong, a freshman at Washburn Rural High School, participates during a Black Student Union meeting. [KATIE MOORE/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

Armstrong said.

Another student said when students flash a peace sign, teachers automatically assume it is a gang sign.

Raines said they have taken steps to train staff on recognizing microaggressions and integrated curriculum representing diverse backgrounds.

“It’s just about being intentional day in and day out,” he said.

Though WRHS has its problems just like any other school does, Exum said it

remains a good school system for all.

“My job is to bring it out to the open and then say ‘Hey, Washburn Rural, we have this problem.’ To get better and greater, we have to solve each problem in a certain way,” he said.

Echoing history Some of today’s challenges echo hurdles students in the Brown era faced. Several alumni of Topeka’s segregated

schools gathered to be part of a KTWU documentary.

Glenda Hicks-Lawton said when she started at a Topeka school when integration was enacted, the white teachers didn’t know how to deal with the black students.

Other alumni of Topeka’s segregated schools said when they were in high school, they weren’t encouraged to pursue higher level courses or college.

Carolyn Wims-Campbell said she was told she was pretty and smart and that she should

be a waitress by a school counselor.

“I strongly detest the memory of her,” she said.

Alonzo Harrison said the Brown decision “opened up a lot of doors,” but was also a Pandora’s box. He said he fears today’s youths face difficult circumstances like the school-to-prison pipeline and police shootings. He wondered if the black community had assimilated so much that they lost a piece of their identity.

Several people expressed that we have come a long way, but more work remains.

“There’s always more that we can do therefore, have we come far? Yes. Do we still have a long way to go?

Yes,” Anderson said. “And I think we as a community we have to be unapologetic about being willing to take the steps that are needed to level the playing the field and giving running starts particularly to the most vulnerable.”

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PROMISE UNFULFILLED: GARDEN CITY USD 457

Horace Good Middle School students fill one of the school’s hallways heading to their next classes in Garden City. [BRAD NADING/GARDEN CITY TELEGRAM]

Discussion about race in schools came late in Garden City

By Amber Friend Garden City Telegram

GARDEN CITY — As the Brown v. Board of Education decision slowly swept integration through American schools, the path forward for Garden City, a small, rural, majority white district, was less apparent.

Garden City USD 457 never saw segregation — a situation not born of ahead-of-its-time progressive thinking but, as the National Park Service notes, tight budgets and few black students — and, as a result, did not face a serious discussion about the role of race in the schools until decades later.

The decision should have been one that forced communities across the country to grapple with equal rights in schools and even lead to better treatment of other marginalized groups, like Hispanic

people, said longtime Garden City resident Loretta De La Rosa.

Some of that change, by no means complete but improved, has come in time for her grandchildren, De La Rosa said. But, decades earlier, as she attended Garden City High School 10 years after the landmark civil rights court case, negative or neglectful treatment of students of color was still present.

“In western Kansas, because we didn’t have a lot of black people ... they think we’re talking about everywhere else,” De La Rosa said.

“They don’t see us talking about Garden City.”

Who we were Segregation never came to Garden City’s schools, but it came to Garden City. De La Rosa and another resident, Loretta Jennings, who is black, remember realizing

Garden City USD 457 Superintendent Steve Karlin talks about issues facing the district in his office at the Educational Support Center. [BRAD NADING/GARDEN CITY TELEGRAM]

BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: 65 YEARS LATER

for the first time that sitting in the balcony at the State Theater was not habit, but effective law.

Only white people could sit on the ground floor. Restaurants, businesses and, earlier, the famous Big Pool would not serve people of color.

Mike Guadian Jr., who is Latino and grew up in Garden City in the 1950s and 1960s, remembers the recreation center not allowing couples of different races to dance together at social events. Latino World War II veterans, including Guadian’s father, met with city leaders to demand equality after serving, but discrimination continued anyway.

Brown-era Garden City High School yearbooks show black and brown faces nearly lost in seas of white ones, alone, sometimes smiling, at the back of class photos, orchestra performances and basketball team group photos.

While De La Rosa, Guadian and resident Joe Gonzales, who went to Garden City schools in the 1960s and 1970s, remember positive experiences at local Catholic elementary schools, the same could not be said for USD 457.

De La Rosa said Hispanic students, many of whom worked in sugar beet fields during part of the school day, were not encouraged to succeed and many dropped out.

Teachers seemed to neglect black students, Jennings said, or be harder on Hispanic students, De La Rosa said.

Counselors did not present college as a real option for Hispanic students, she said.

Gonzales echoed her, adding that the schools only pushed top students toward postsecondary education.

The environment was more hostile for Guidan’s parents, who would grow up to fight for equality for Hispanics in the city and school system, Guadian said. As the students of his era got older, they would push for similar change.

A changing Garden City The latter half of the 20th

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A class photo from Southside School in Finney County from the 1920s. [COURTESY FINNEY COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM]

century saw the exit of segregation in Garden City and a wave of new neighbors from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. Meat-packing came to the city in the late ‘70s, eventually attracting Somali and Burmese immigrants to live and work in the area.

Meanwhile, Guadian and other Mexican-Americans served on a committee to bring the district into compliance with affirmative action policies — only 4 percent of employees, all Hispanic, were minorities compared to the state-required 21 percent — and fought the school board to add English Second Language classes to address high Hispanic dropout rates.

Today, according to census records, the city’s population is about 50 percent Hispanic or Latino, 40 percent white, 5 percent Asian and 3 percent African American. And after 30 years of a growing district, a steadily declining percentage of white students and

steadily increasing percentage of Hispanic, black and Native American students, the white and Hispanic representation essentially switched places.

In 1988, white students made up about 66 percent of the district’s population, Hispanic students about 26.3 percent, Asian students 6.3 percent and black students barely 1 percent.

In 2018, Hispanic students made up 67 percent of the district, white students about 21 percent, Asian and black students about 5 percent each and Native American students about 1.5 percent, according to reports provided by the district.

The district today That diversity, said USD 457 Superintendent Steve Karlin, is a “huge strength” for the district and city.

“The changes that our community went through in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s with

A group of third-graders at Georgia Matthews Elementary School hold up props as they take a photograph at a photo booth station at the Garden City school. The district employs bilingual teachers in all district schools and 44 percent, while not necessary bilingual, are certified to teach English Second Language classes. [BRAD NADING/GARDEN CITY TELEGRAM]

the arrival of the beef packing industry really was a significant change in the makeup of our community, and I think since then the community has responded extremely well,”

Karlin said.

Today, most schools’ demographic breakdowns reflect the district’s, with several outliers, according to state data. Two elementary

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schools drawing in families from outside city limits have significantly higher white populations, one breaking 74 percent. Two other elementary schools have nearly triple the percentage of black students as the district average, while two more have none.

Another has a nearly 88 percent Hispanic student body.

Janie Perkins, the district’s supplemental services coordinator, said there are bilingual teachers in all district schools and 44 percent, while not necessary bilingual, are certified to teach English Second Language classes. The district employs teachers who are black, white, Hispanic, Native American and Vietnamese, and some are from Spain, India and the Philippines, she said.

Regardless, even in an ethnically diverse city, about 70 percent of all employees and 82 percent of teachers are white, Karlin said, and the vast majority of minority employees are Hispanic.

The district’s efforts to groom students and other residents for teaching jobs in the district may help the administration tip those scales, he said. But, in an ongoing national teacher shortage, there are other priorities.

“We’d always like to have more qualified Hispanic teachers and leaders, but we always hire the best person for the job…” Karlin said.

“Nothing is more important than that.”

According to state data, students of all races have held at least a 93 percent attendance rate since 1997, though data for black, Native American and multiethnic students is largely unavailable. In 2018, Asian students had the highest rate at about 96 percent, with white and Hispanic students hovering near 94.

The same year, white students and Asian males experienced the lowest dropout rates and white students and black males and multiethnic and white students saw the highest graduation

rates compared to all other demographics.

The district and individual schools have made efforts to connect with parents of all backgrounds and promote student success, Karlin and Perkins said. The school uses Spanish, Burmese and Vietnamese interpreters, a call-in translation service and multilingual forms and fliers to communicate with families at parent-teacher conferences, in the administrative office and elsewhere.

Family literacy, math and science events are held during the school day and evening to accommodate parents with different work schedules. Some teachers go door to door before the beginning of the school year to meet parents. Several programs, like Kansas Reading Roadmap and LIFE, aim to build relationships between students, staff and parents, as well as improve literacy.

Staff at one of the intermediate schools visited Tyson Fresh Meats, where many residents work, and spoke to parents during their breaks about what was going on at the school, Perkins said. Other staff members have sat down with parents who recently immigrated from other countries to better understand their needs, she said.

What’s left to do Feelings about the district today vary from person to person.

Gonzales said USD 457 has greatly improved and has been a positive environment for his grandchildren. De La Rosa agreed that things have changed for the better, though she thinks there needs to be more teachers and administrators of color. To Jennings, things had largely stayed the same — the schools have neglected her grandchildren as they neglected her, she said.

But students see things differently. Garden City High School students Leorenz Altamirano, Alyssa Nava and

Garden City High School freshmen make their way through the halls to their next classes at the school.

Even though students at Garden City schools are majority-minority, 70 percent of all employees in the district and 82 percent of teachers are white. [BRAD NADING/GARDEN CITY TELEGRAM]

Tuyen “Tammy” Truong all said the district’s free translation resources were meaningful to them.

Besides that, the high school hosts community events, like a regional Christmas celebration for Filipino-Americans, Altamirano said. Teachers and counselors treat all students equally, Nava said.

For the most part, students are happy at the schools and proud of the diversity, they said, though there is room for improvement.

Nava and Truong pointed to greater diversity among teachers, Nava suggesting more bilingual staff members and Truong more Asian instructors.

And some students, though they are not the majority, are still in need of a lesson on racism and diversity, Truong said.

Since Karlin and Perkins came to the district in the late 1980s and 1990s, they said the district has worked to offer better access to students

The main entrance for Garden City High School is located on the southwest side of the building. USD 457 averages 30-35 language dialects spoken by students in its schools each year. [BRAD NADING/ GARDEN CITY TELEGRAM]

and families of all races and backgrounds. If a student or parent thinks the district is not achieving that, Karlin said he hopes they would say so to a teacher, principal or to him, personally.

“Regardless of what their background or their ethnicity is, school should be a great

place for every kid,” Karlin said. “That relationship with the student and their family and understanding that is really, I think, what becomes really, really important in this. And I think our staff works very hard to meet the needs for our students and our families.”

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PROMISE UNFULFILLED: PITTSBURG USD 250

During a bingo game in Spanish, Valeria Gonzalez helps another student play. Valeria said the game was easy for her, but that wasn’t the case for her non-Spanish-speaking classmate.

Lashawn Taylor, left, and Richard Bell show young men how to tie a tie while giving away food baskets.

[PITTSBURG MORNING SUN PHOTOS]

Pittsburg schools focus on programs, help to all students in need

By Stephanie Potter Pittsburg Morning Sun

PITTSBURG — According to Pittsburg USD 250 Superintendent of Schools Richard Proffitt, two landmark court decisions changed the face of education — Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1975.

Proffitt has been in education for nearly three decades at six different school districts, starting in western Kansas and now in southeast Kansas.

The dynamic of education has changed over the years, Proffit said. Districts have worked on focusing on inclusion of all students, no matter their demographic, socioeconomic background and disabilities, including Pittsburg USD 250.

Proffitt said one of the biggest challenges the district faces is the poverty level.

Approximately 60 percent of the district’s students qualify for free or reduced lunch.

“Everywhere I’ve been, kids have been included regardless,” Proffitt said. “More lines have been drawn along socioeconomic status than just about anything else.”

Although the requirements for free or reduced lunch have lowered in the past few years, “still being at 60 percent, presents quite a few challenges to really meet a lot of students needs,” Proffitt said.

For many students, this could affect class choices and higher education, he said.

“There are some times kids don’t have a belief or expectation that they can take those kinds of classes,” Proffitt said.

“That they can go beyond our walls and go into some sort of post-secondary education.

We’re trying to break those barriers down.”

This includes lifting some restrictions.

“We need to have a system that fits the needs of our kids instead of having a bunch of kids that fit into our system,” Proffitt said. “There’s a huge difference.”

Special education According to the United States Department of Education, IDEA “guaranteed access to a free, appropriate, public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment to every child with a disability.

Subsequent amendments, as reflected in the IDEA, have led to an increased emphasis on access to the general education curriculum, the provision of services for young children from birth to 5, transition planning and accountability for the achievement of students with disabilities.”

Prior to the passage, students with disabilities were separated — often going to separate schools — without the

George Nettels Elementary third-grade student Damion Pryor visits with Hispanics of Today members. Pittsburg State University groups Hispanics of Today and Black Student Association brought hands-on activities to the school to teach the students a lesson on diversity.

opportunities other students had, Proffitt said.

“Students with exceptionalities then started to have to have Individualized Education Programs started coming in,” he said.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, “The IEP creates an opportunity for teachers, parents, school administrators, related services personnel, and students (when appropriate) to work together to improve educational results for children with disabilities.

The IEP is the cornerstone of a

quality education for each child with a disability.”

More students were then moved into the school buildings, many still in selfcontained classrooms.

“Then we have what is called ‘inclusions’ where we get out of individual rooms and into the mainstream,” Proffitt said. “It has even gone so far as team teaching in our district between our special education teachers and regular education teacher in the same classroom with no delineations between any of the students.”

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In 2017, Pittsburg residents voted on a $31 million bond project for the Pittsburg school district. The project included renovations, which included changes to every school. An auto-shop room was transformed into a room for students with autism. The room has a kitchen, washer and dryer set, quiet rooms, soft flooring and sensory areas. The shop doors were removed and replaced with double doors designed for easy access for students in wheelchairs.

Race in schools According to the Civil Rights Data Collection in its 2015 report, the latest available, Pittsburg has 3,052 students enrolled, with 0.4 percent American Indian/ Alaskan Native students, 4.2 percent black or AfricanAmerican, 1.3 percent Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander, 70.6 percent white, 1.1 percent Asian, 14.8 percent Hispanic, and 7.6 percent two or more races.

The report said that out of 257 students who received in-school suspensions: 8.9 percent were black, 1.6 percent were Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander, 58.8 percent were white, 15.2 percent were Hispanic and 15.6 percent were two or more race.

The report also says that out of 227 students who received out-of-school suspensions: 12.3 percent were black, 63.9 percent were white, 6.6 percent were Hispanic and 17.2 percent two or more races. Out of 12 expulsions, 16.7 percent of the students were black, 33.3 percent were white, 33.3 percent Hispanic and 16.7 percent two or more races. Lastly, out of the 25 students who were referred to law enforcement, 24 percent were black, 60 percent were white and 16 percent were Hispanic.

The teachers Just about every teacher does something on a daily

The Grahm-Crites family visit the South Korean table at Meadowlark’s Multicultural Fair. The mother of Meadowlark students Davi, Jessi and Carol Ann Grahm-Crites said they learned about South Korea.

basis to include students, it’s just that there’s no spotlight on it, Proffitt said.

Through grants, many teachers in the district go through lengths to learn more about their students. Westside Elementary first-grade teacher Rachel Southard and English as a Second Language teacher Michelle Broxterman spent their summer vacation last year at the Marshall Islands to help them better understand their Marshallese students.

The teachers tried to follow the Marshallese cultural norms.

“We were completely immersed in their culture,” Broxterman said when she came back from the trip.

They were given some tutoring on basic phrases in Marshallese, which put the teachers in a similar situation as their English as a Second Language learners.

“This really put us in the shoes of the English language learners,” Broxterman said.

“It is very similar to our students’ experience.”

Proffitt said the district encourages teachers to become ESOL-endorsed.

Pittsburg Community Middle School teachers Angela Lewis and Lynette Wescott took a tour back in time through the Belfer National

Conference for Education and the Freedom Foundations at Valley Forge. They also participated in the Korean War Digital History Project.

“It’s all about being a lifelong learner and modeling new learning for your students,” said Wescott, sixth-grade social studies teacher.

“Growing up in southeast Kansas and then living here my entire life, your lens and experiences can be small.

“Doing these grants have allowed us to expand these lenses through experience and knowledge.”

Technology Technology has changed a lot of things, Proffitt said.

He said when talking about technology, it’s not just about students being able to use computers.

“It has given us the ability to put a lot more information at the fingertips of every one of our students,” Proffitt said. “When you think about how technology changes the game of education for those who have limited English proficiency, we now have programs that can help those kids out and could help the teachers out, where nearly 30 years ago when I started the only computer that was in my

Lakeside Elementary School students look at painted rocks on a pathway to the school’s butterfly garden. [PITTSBURG MORNING SUN PHOTOS]

classroom was mine and the only thing that was on it was word processing.”

Teachers use tablets, laptops and a variety of software to bring information to all.

Tablets are also being used for special education to help students communicate.

Westside fifth-graders taking the reins in instructing future teachers on how to make videos about the “Idiom of the Week” at PSU is an example of how both technology, ESOL endorsement and the partnership with the university come together.

The fifth-graders — for whom English is their second language — visited PSU to teach students in the Methods and Materials for English Language Learners class, taught by Professor Tatiana Sildus.

The students used iMovie apps on iPads to create the videos on which they also add sound and special effects — as

well as starring teachers and staff from the school.

“Having teachers in the videos is exciting to them,” Broxterman said. “The teachers and staff help them pay attention to the videos, it is exciting for them to see someone they know in the videos.”

Despite the complexity of idioms the students managed to create videos that were not only informational but engaging with their audience.

At the end of each video, the students encourage reflexivity by asking the audience about instances they used the idiom of the week.

“When you look at all of our programs, like ESOL, that’s about equality — equal opportunities to education,” Proffitt said. “There are lots of things that have happened since 1954 that have been infused in educational programing and in every school in the state of Kansas, it is a part of who they are.”

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PROMISE UNFULFILLED: NEWTON USD 373

Santa Fe 5/6 Center assistant principal Brandon Cheeks said he feels a call to provide guidance to any student in need — though he is aware that having a similar background can help him relate better in certain situations. [KELLY BRECKUNITCH/NEWTON KANSAN]

Newton district’s staff not reflective of growing student diversity

By Chad Frey and Kelly Breckunitch Newton Kansan

NEWTON — Victoria Adamé, currently a principal at a private school after serving 15 years in that capacity for Newton USD 373, can remember one of the days that convinced her to become an educator and bring about some change.

She was a student in Newton schools in the 1960s. She was concerned about a grade she had received — specifically a

C — and went to talk with her teacher about it.

“She explained to me that a C was fine,” Adamé said.

“It was a fine grade. She explained that ‘You are going to grow up and you are going to clean houses, that is what Mexican women of this town do.’”

It was the reflection of a white teacher, who saw the world through white eyes.

Adamé talks about that moment today when asked about having teachers and principals who reflect the

diverse student population in schools. She is unassuming and doesn’t throw out accusations. But she will point out that there are not many nonwhite teachers in Newton schools (currently, less than 3 percent) and that there are few building principals who are nonwhite as well (two out of 15, currently).

And this, she says, is nothing new. It was not much different when she graduated from Newton High School in 1971.

“The closest I got to

diversity as a student was one black teacher,” Adamé said.

It is not clear if Brandon Cheeks is the first AfricanAmerican building administrator in the Newton school district, but it is known that when he was hired in 2018 he was the first in several decades.

“To the best of my knowledge he is the first African-American principal in our district,” said superintendent Deb Hamm.

Hamm’s history in the district, as an administrator,

teacher and resident goes back more than 30 years.

Therein lies a struggle for the school system — teaching staff and building administration staff that does not reflect the makeup of the student body.

According to demographics from the Kansas Department of Education, in the 19981999 school year, Newton USD 373 was about 81 percent white and 19 percent minority. In 2018-2019, it sits at about 62 percent white and 38 percent minority.

BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: 65 YEARS LATER

However, teaching and building administration staff within the district do not mirror those breakdowns.

According to statistics compiled by USD 373, in 2019, building administrators are 86.6 percent white, teachers are 97 percent white.

Being part of a minority is not easy — and the difficulties come from both within and outside the walls of the schools.

“It wasn’t always easy to win over staff. It was hard to have people accept me in that role (principal),” Adamé said. “… It is not something the community is looking for. I did have experiences of parents not wanting to deal with their kids. People were up front about it.”

This was the topic of discussion of a recent meeting of the Newton Community for Racial Justice, which hosted Hamm and several teachers who are spearheading efforts to look at diversity issues in the school system.

The percentages, however, do not tell the real story. There are 15 building administrators, and only one of those is African-American. Only one is Hispanic. Out of more than 300 teachers reported, only three are African-American and two are Hispanic.

“We have given it some thought, more recently in the past couple of years and most recently in the last year to see if there are things that we can do impact this,” Hamm said.

“There are a number of factors that lead into this. One is how many students of color actually choose education as a career goal. When you look at the numbers at the university level, there are few people of color that actually enter education and that impacts who ultimately works in schools.”

She is not wrong in her assertion.

According to a study by the National Educators Association, expanded career options for minorities, resulting from civil rights gains,

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District by the numbers Administrators: 86.6% white 6.6% Black/African-American 6.6% Hispanic

Teachers: 97% White 0.9% Black/African-American 0.6% Hispanic 0.3% American Indian or Alaska Native 0.3% Asian 0.3% Asian/Pacific Islander 0.3% Other

Newton USD 373 Superintendent Deb Hamm says the district is looking at ways to attract more minority applicants for the teaching force and building administration to better reflect the diverse makeup of the student body. [FILE/NEWTON KANSAN]

also have reduced teacher diversity. After World War II 79 percent of AfricanAmerican female college graduates worked as teachers; however, by the mid-1980s, that figure had fallen to 23 percent. Between 1975 and 1982, the number of bachelor’s degrees in education awarded to minorities decreased by 50 percent, nearly twice the rate of decline for whites, while the number of bachelor’s degrees in business and other fields of study awarded to students of color increased.

Finding opportunities And, there is always the underlying issue of race.

“There are many views about this. There are people who still believe that people of ethnicity should not have opportunities,” Adamé said.

Nationally teachers of color made up 9 percent of the teaching force in 1986.

By 2011, the proportion had

increased to 16 percent.

According to the NEA, the increase was driven by a growth in the percentage of Latino teachers, growing from 2 percent of all teachers in 1986 to 6 percent in 2011. Teachers characterized racially as “other” also increased, from less than 1 percent in 1986 to 4 percent in 2011. African-American teachers remained at between 6 and 7 percent of public school teachers over the same time period.

“The question becomes how do we get persons of color to be even interested in applying for our district?” Hamm said.

“We are looking at some different things like language on our job descriptions to indicate that we are interested in diversity and having a diverse workforce. We have not hit upon anything yet that we have any evidence that works, or does not work, for hiring persons of color.”

That is a big problem.

Sheryl Wilson, director of Kansas Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution at Bethel College, and a member of the Newton Community for Racial Justice group is one of very few minorities working at the college.

She believes that making the invitation — the job offer — in and of itself is simply not enough. And using buzzwords like “diversity” in advertising is a sure way to turn off potential applicants.

“For many people many people of color, when they take roles, go to schools, go to institutions that are all white, the benefits have to outweigh the deficits,” Wilson said.

“When the deficits outweigh the benefits, that is when people begin looking at their exit strategies. Sometimes it has to do with concern around making a shift in recruiting practices to bring in more people of color …. If this is not something that is on everyone’s watch, shame on them.

This can’t be a box you check on your list of things and say ‘we have two or three people here who are diverse. That is not diversity.”

As if there is a need to exacerbate the problem, a study by the UCLA’s Cooperative Institutional Research Program in 2016 found that the number of students who say they will major in education has reached its lowest point in 45 years — 4.2 percent said they intend to major in education, compared to 11 percent in 2000; 10 percent in 1990; and 11 percent in 1971.

“A lot of it comes down to salary,” said Angela Becker, board of education member for USD 373. “A lot of people do not see themselves in the teaching profession because they do not see themselves in a career where they can make a decent living.”

The racial makeup of teaching staff and administration has not, according to Becker, been discussed in her time on the board. She is among the newest board members for Newton USD 373, elected in 2017.

“The numbers are obviously not great, but I do not believe it is at all intentional,” Becker said.

She said it would be a good thing for districts to set a goal.

There is, however, a struggle in the hiring process. According to Hamm, the school district does not

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collect or ask for racial information from applicants — to avoid any possible Office for Civil Rights violations or complaints.

The district screens applications in search of possible interview candidates without ethnicity considered.

“We do not know the color of a person until they show up for an interview,” Hamm said.

Hamm said the last “few” hires of people of color have been applicants who grew up in the community and wanted to come back home after college — like Adamé.

“That is great, but we are not necessarily attracting people from communities to come to our community,” Hamm said. “We need to be more conscious of it, and more intentional about it, in our hiring to get people to come here.”

Coming to Newton Cheeks took a different path. He grew up in Memphis, Tenn. Cheeks came to Newton after teaching seventh grade social studies in USD 305 Salina. This is his first administrative role.

Building relationships has been central to Cheeks’ approach to education since he started teaching 13 years ago — and that is not always limited to the classroom. In Salina, Cheeks eventually took on roles as a department leader while also serving on the board of directors for the Greater Salina Community Foundation and working as a youth pastor at St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church.

He was attracted to the Newton position, in part, because of a redesign project going on in the school — part of a state initiative to change how schools operate and how students are taught.

“All those pieces that are a part of our redesign, I think it fits right along with my own personal philosophy of education. The biggest piece for me is building those relationships

While enrollment by minorities in Newton USD 373 has increased in the past three decades, the district has struggled to attract minority teachers and principals. [FILE/NEWTON KANSAN]

with the kids because I think if each student can have a relationship with someone, then hopefully that will help the whole education process for them,” Cheeks said. “I feel that each child should have a positive relationship with some adult in the building, and I feel within that positive relationship we can encourage, we can empower the young people to do great things not only in this school, but in this world.”

That resonates with Wilson — who said that there must be a reward in taking the job.

“When a person of color decides to work in an all white community, they count that cost. The take it very seriously what they are walking into,” Wilson said. “There are no illusions of how difficult that might be. For some of us, it means advancement in our careers. This is different from every place I have ever lived.

I would not say it is better, but there is something to be gained.

“For me, it had everything to do with the job I had to come to, and being able to do some things innovation-wise

and things I would not be able to do elsewhere.”

Her father was the first African-American firefighter in the city she grew up in.

Being the first is part of her family DNA. Becker said she believes that attracting teachers of any ethnicity to the district starts with the current student body.

“You can not be what you can not see,” Becker said.

“The kids that are in school who re people of color don’t see teachers who look like them and they might not ever think that (teaching) is a career path for them, which is not good because there is already a teacher shortage.”

Adamé said some districts have made a commitment to hiring a more diverse teaching force — that is what attracted her to one of her previous jobs.

And that having that diverse group as teachers and principals is good for education.

“Learning increases for children of diversity when they see teachers of diversity,” Adamé said. “Having those role models can make a difference.”

Cheeks has seen those

positive impacts, too. While he admitted that as assistant principal at Santa Fe 5/6 Center he tries to be a role model for all his students, he knows something as simple as his presence can have a bigger influence among kids with a similar ethnic background.

“I’m gonna help any kid who comes across my path if I can help them, but I do feel that with some students if you look like them, then they have hope. You give them hope that: ‘Oh man, I can be successful. I can do some positive things in my life just because I see someone who looks like me,’” Cheeks said. “I do feel that sometimes it’s very needed.”

Not having teachers and principals that “look like our students” leads to other issues as well.

According to civil rights data collection at ed.gov, minority students are more likely to draw an expulsion from school. In 2015, the most recent data set available, while minority students made up 46.6 percent of the enrollment, they accounted for 66 percent of expulsions.

Minorities made up 44.9 percent of in-school suspensions and 42.6 percent of out-ofschool suspensions.

“There can be a lot of reasons that happens, including staff makeup. Not being culturally or ethnically educated,” Hamm said. “The idea, for instance, that all families are like my family .....we expect all kids to act a certain way, and when they do not, it results in action.

That is an issue nationally.

The understanding of cultural makeup and ethnic makeup of your community is really important. It is a goal for every governmental organization is to represent the public.”

Misunderstanding of cultural backgrounds (like the use of a certain phrase) can play into those disciplinary problems, according to Cheeks, which is why having school leaders that mirror students’ own cultural make-up can be key.

Having been in similar positions before, Cheeks can relate to students in those cases and try to address the situation without any disciplinary action being taken. Cheeks — who admitted one negative experience in school could have put him on a different path — knows the ramifications such actions can have.

Hamm said there are broader issues than the racial statistics within schools will show.

For example, it has been more than a decade since there has been a minority sitting on the board of education. It has been even longer for the city or county commissions. It has also been that long since there have been minority candidates on the ballot to vote for.

“How do we reach out and encourage that leadership to come? Through policy and direction, you can bring forward issues. We have noted for a while that we are not seeing applicants,” Hamm said. “I see this as a bigger issue than just a school issue.”

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PROMISE UNFULFILLED: HAYS USD 489

Challenge in Hays lies in funding special education disturbances, traumatic brain injuries, hearing impairments, visual impairments, speech impairments, orthopedic impairments and students who are considered gifted, according to the USD 489 website.

According to the U.S. Department of Education website, IDEA has two purposes: To provide a free appropriate public education to children with disabilities and to give parents a voice in their child’s education.

The law requires that all special education students have an IEP — an Individualized Education Program. In USD 489, that individualized program looks not just at performance in the classroom, it also focuses on the student’s post-secondary goals, Hipp said. “What does success for this kid look like?”

By Linn Ann Huntington Hays Daily News

HAYS — Ask Hays Unified School District 489 Superintendent John Thissen about the most significant challenge affecting Hays Public Schools in the past 20 years, and his answer is immediate and unequivocal: “Our challenges have been tremendous because the state has not funded facilities for the most physically and mentally challenged children," Thissen said.

Around 19 percent of USD 489 students receive some type of special education services, Thissen said. That compares to the state average of 14 percent.

He said there has been a lot of discussion among school superintendents in the state of “where is the limit? We want to serve everybody, but is the majority not being served?

How much is being taken from the majority? We are still in the mode of trying to figure it out — that balance.”

The Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954 opened the door to recognition that all children — regardless of race, gender or disability — have a right to the same public education.

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 504, addressed protections for students with disabilities in programs that receive federal financial assistance. The Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), which passed in 1975, “took that further, saying students with disabilities deserve an equal education, too,” said Chris Hipp, USD 489 director of special education.

Hays is the host district for the West Central Kansas Special Education Co-operative that also serves Elis, Victoria and LaCrosse.

STAR students and staff participate in group instruction. [HAYS DAILY NEWS PHOTOS]

Paraprofessional Areli Hernandez helps STAR student Ryder McCormick, 6, complete his school-to-home communication worksheet in late March at Roosevelt Elementary School in Hays.

Harrison Urban, 8, communicates with STAR teacher Tasha Lang using a communication device with audio output.

The co-op, which has 68 certified special education teachers and staff, serves all special education students in these public schools, as well as

all those in private schools.

Hipp said special ed teachers are assigned in each building, but there are also specialists who travel from building to

building.

Special education serves students with intellectual disabilities, autism, learning disabilities, emotional

Special education funding challenges When the state of Kansas begin closing mental hospitals, private companies, such as KVS Wheatland Hospital in Hays, came in to provide treatment options for children with significant emotional needs around 1999 to 2000, Hipp said.

But those placement options are limited. “It shifts the responsibility to the schools to meet the needs of these kids,” Hipp said.

USD 489 opened Westside Alternative School, 323 W. 12th, in 1991. Students aged 10 to 15 were referred to Westside because they had demonstrated emotional or behavioral problems serious enough to require intensive mental health services. The district currently partners with High Plains Mental Health to provide special services for students at Westside.

“School districts have to

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figure out how to meet the state (mandated) outcomes with a certain pot of money,” Hipp said.

That pot of money comes from three different sources.

When the federal law regarding special education was first passed, Hipp said, it promised the federal government would provide 40 percent of the funding for special education. In reality, the federal government provides about 15 percent, he said.

The state is supposed to provide 92 percent of the 60 percent the feds didn’t fund, Hipp said. In reality, “only one year in the last 10 has the state actually funded the 92 percent.

It has actually funded around 80 percent,” Hipp said.

“Basically, the federal government gives us a little bit of money. The state gives us a little bit of money, and the district has to come up with the rest.”

According to the district’s website, in 2018-2019 the special education co-op was budgeted to receive $8.3 million out of the total school district budget of $49 million, or around $17 percent of the budget.

The STAR Program One approach that USD 489 has taken to special education has been to consolidate some special education services at one site, Roosevelt Elementary, 2000 MacArthur.

“You can be a lot more specific and focused by bringing kids together who have similar needs,” Hipp said. “It’s also more efficient.”

The Systematic Teaching with Adaptations and Reinforcement (STAR) program was begun three years ago by Lindy McDaniel, one of the special education teachers at Roosevelt.

This year STAR is serving 34 children, preschool through fifth grade. There are four teachers involved with the program — one specific to preschool — and the equivalent of

Paraprofessional Angela Miller works with STAR student Marla Tinoco-Olivas, 9, on instruction specifically designed for her academic level at Roosevelt Elementary School.

[HAYS DAILY NEWS]

17 full-time paraprofessionals.

In conjunction with each individual student’s IEP, the STAR program focuses on what specifically that child needs.

In addition to academics, that learning can include social skills, personal hygiene and how to follow simple directions.

“It depends on the child’s needs and what the family wants for their child,” McDaniel said.

The biggest challenge, McDaniel said, is reaching children and helping them reach their highest level of potential.

“The range of needs and abilities is so great," she said.

Some students may come to us at a second grade age level, but a 6-month-old developmental level.”

Paula Rice, principal at Roosevelt, said students in the general population at Roosevelt don’t treat the STAR students as “different.”

“The most heart-warming thing for me is children don’t know any different unless we teach them there is a difference. It’s not tolerance. It’s inclusion and equitability,” Rice said.

The ABC’s of demographics USD 489 has had a fairly stable FTE (full-time

Number of homeless youth in USD 489 The number of homeless youth were not tracked by the district until the 2008-2009 school year. No homeless youth were reported that year.

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31 24

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20092010

20102011

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equivalency) enrollment of around 3,000 students the past few years. That figure, taken from the district’s website, includes kindergarten and at-risk 4-year-olds, but not virtual students.

In 2018 the racial/ethnic breakdown was as follows: 91 percent white, 0.2 percent African-American, 4.5 percent Hispanic and 4.3 percent other ethnicities.

That compares to the following figures in 2014, the earliest year such statistics are available: 84 percent white, 0.9 percent African-American, 9.7 percent Hispanic and 5.4 percent other ethnicities.

These figures are tracked and reported by the Kansas State Department of Education.

Sarah Wasinger, USD 489 board clerk, said in the

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past 15 to 20 years, the district’s Hispanic population has been between 9 and 10 percent.

She had no explanation for the drop by almost half in 2018 other than that families selfreport their ethnic heritage.

Historical records show there has never been racial segregation in the Hays School District. For several decades the school system has had an open district policy, “meaning families can request the elementary school they want their children to go to,” Wasinger said.

In 2018 the percentage of students who were non-English native speakers was 6.1 percent, compared to 0.1 percent in 2014. Wasinger said the most common language was Spanish, followed by Chinese.

The percentage of

economically disadvantaged children in the district has remained fairly consistent in the past five years, ranging between 40 and 41 percent.

The district’s website reports that the number of students receiving free lunches has likewise remained steady the past two years at around 900 students. The number of students receiving reducedcost lunches has been 270 in 2018-2019, compared to 319 in the 2017-2018 school year.

That compares to 896 students receiving free lunches in 2014-2015 and 350 students receiving reduced-cost lunches.

Other figures that are tracked are children from migrant families and those from homeless families.

Wasinger said migrant families are defined as those whose parents have to travel as part of their work, such as in the agriculture and oil field sectors. A special coordinator within the district is assigned to visit with each of these families and share what local resources are available to them, Wasinger said.

No children from migrant families were enrolled in the district in 2018, compared to 3 percent in 2014.

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Act, passed in 1987, defines homeless children and youth as “individuals who lack fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence.”

The federal law requires “each state to ensure that each homeless child or child of a homeless individual has access to the same education as other children, including public preschool programs.”

The number of homeless children was not tracked in the district until the 2008-2009 school year. No homeless children were enrolled that year. Since then, the number of homeless children has ranged from a high of 31 in 2009-2010 and 2015-2016 to a low of 12 children in 2012-2013. This year there are 27 homeless children enrolled in USD 489.

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Members of the Topeka USD 501 Equity Council listen to a presentation. [REX WOLF/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

Teachers must face their own biases on race, diversity

By Morgan Chilson The Capital-Journal

T

ough conversations with teachers about race and diversity — and their own biases — must happen to address classroom inequalities that may change the lives

of children, experts say.

Multiple studies have highlighted the unequal ways that children of different races are treated in the classroom. Many have focused on black and Hispanic girls, where the data often shows significant problems: • Black girls are 5.5 times and

Native American girls 3 times more likely to be suspended than white girls.

• Black students accounted for 15.5 percent of all public school students, but make up about 39 percent of students suspended from school.

“We know from the research that

black children are disciplined or punished way disproportionately to white children for the same infractions,” said Deborah Loewenberg Ball, dean of the University of Michigan’s School of Education and who recently was listed on Education Week’s 200 university scholars influencing educational

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The Equity Council of Topeka Unified School District 501 met recently to exchange ideas as it pushes for more culturally relevant and culturally responsive teaching. [REX WOLF/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

policy and practice.

Discipline, Ball said, usually is based on a subjective judgement by a teacher. In the classroom, a teacher may see a student’s lack of cooperation and make a judgement based on whether the child has a toothache, or the way the child’s facial expression looks.

“You don’t have time to stop and realize that that’s what you’re doing,” Ball said. “When a black girl is laughing in class, we do know that it’s more likely that teachers are going to perceive her as being belligerent or not being on task. People get very anxious when you say something like that.”

Ball said such an interaction is not at the level of a teacher actively thinking, “Oh I see a black girl, and I plan to think of her as belligerent.”

It’s not just about implicit biases, which are attitudes or stereotypes that affect the way people act and respond to understand others in an unconscious way, Ball said.

“These biases aren’t just beliefs and ways of seeing, but they’re also habits in the way we interact with kids,” she said.

Heather Caswell, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Emporia State University, who specializes in curriculum and instruction.

She said the schools that teach the teachers, like ESU which is known as The Teachers College, are working with students to understand how their biases and actions impact their diverse classrooms.

Meeting the needs of students is not just about addressing

inequalities in discipline. Caswell referred to a curriculum that is sometimes “very white,” which can impact the way students see themselves. Books, movies, lessons that teach all white perspectives, that don’t highlight the communities and successes of other races, are a problem.

She called it “the danger of a single story.”

“I think that the danger of that hidden curriculum that refers to unwritten or unofficial, untended values and perspectives that students learn every day, brings the importance of being aware of implicit bias or bias when selecting the curriculum and the textbooks for schools and students,” Caswell said. “We have tools and strategies to address that. I just don’t know if everyone is aware of those tools

and strategies.”

Caswell said the Kansas Department of Education is undergoing a redesign process right now, and it’s a perfect time to have conversations about the types of things being integrated into the curriculum.

Changing the way teachers are trained is an important step in changing what happens in classrooms, Ball said.

“Up to this point, we’ve done too much just acquainting people with the fact that our society is unequal and has many patterns of racism,” she said. “We haven’t done much in helping teachers change patterns.”

Tiffany Anderson, superintendent of Topeka Public Schools, said her district is diving into understanding equity through its

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Among the efforts of the Topeka USD 501 Equity Council is striving to become more culturally relevant.

[PHOTOS BY REX WOLF/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

Equity Council, focusing on culturally relevant and culturally responsive teaching.

“The work that we’ve done within the district, at least over the last three years, has really been focused on creating access and opportunity,” she said, adding that a new plan started in 2017.

“One of the pillars of the plan is equity and climate and culture, which is just wonderful,” she said, adding that addressing equity affects grading, academics, facilities, customer services and the language used.

The district has been working with all staff to raise awareness of issues through partnerships and education.

“We recognize that race, socioeconomics, gender, do not dictate and should not dictate the outcomes for students,” she said. “The practitioner in front of the students dictates how much access and opportunity and what learning can look like. Having that foundational piece of knowing possibility and hearing it from a research perspective has been critical.”

Courageous conversations, Anderson said, lie at the foundation of the work, and then it’s necessary to move beyond conversation to action. It was necessary to take a hard look at data, so the district purchased a data warehouse in 2016 to tell them about students enrolled in honors classes, a

demographic breakdown of graduation and discipline issues, and other facts.

A trip to a juvenile detention center was a way to bring home the challenges.

“Seeing that 80 percent of those students in the juvenile detention center were foster kids, kids from poverty and kids of color,” she said. “From that, we also looked at microaggressions and language, what are the things that we say.”

Much education is necessary, Anderson said.

“This is my third year laying the groundwork, from the lens of, first, helping all of us to seek to gain a greater understanding of equity and what that means and when there are disparities, how does that show up,” she said. “Not assuming that people understand what implicit bias is and microaggressions or even internalized racism.”

Discussions about racism and what happens in classrooms are sometimes difficult discussions to have with teachers, both Ball and Caswell said.

“Sometimes the work becomes kind of stalled because when you start trying to talk about race in this country, you hit kind of a roadblock,” Ball said.

“White teachers can feel defensive, feel as if it’s about them individually. I think we’re on the edge of understanding that you have to get past that individual defensiveness.”

Tiffany Anderson, superintendent of Topeka Public Schools, addresses the district’s Equity Council, which is focusing on culturally relevant and culturally responsive teaching.

Dexter Armstrong, who is with the National Parks Service, which managers the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site, presents a schedule with future events available to the community.

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Beryl New, certified personnel manager for USD 501, watches a Power Point presentation during the TPS Equity Council meeting. [REX WOLF/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

Instead, she said, it’s about patterns that are much bigger than them, and there are options to do things differently at an individual level.

“It does start with thinking about oneself,” she said. “Eighty percent of teachers are white, a very large fraction are women. A person like me who has been a teacher, I have to understand that being a white woman means that there are preferences I have about behavior, things that I assume, things that are part of my growing up in this society, that are not exactly my fault, but I have to understand that I’m bringing them.

“When I’m teaching, and I get irritated that a black boy in my class is laughing hysterically

during instruction. But a white boy is also doing that. What is leading me to kind of land on the black boy? I need to start noticing that I’m doing that.”

It’s challenging work to do, to dive in and examine those biases, recognize them and then change them.

“I think we live in a world where failure or being wrong is always seen as such a negative,” Caswell said.

It’s important, she said, to embrace mistakes and be aware of biases and the ways we think so that we can move forward in a different way.

“I think if we choose not to talk about it, then we’re just continuing to contribute to that system

of oppression,” she said. “If we choose to talk about it and address it, then we are lessening the oppression within that system.

We have to hear from everyone’s voice in order to have that conversation.”

Ball said movement must be made to address inequity in schools.

“The problem is that we see that even 65 years after Brown (v. Board), the many things that led to this point, that schools are really in many ways just as segregated, more segregated than they’ve been in a long time,” she said. “The patterns that led to, for example, disproportionate punishment practices or disproportionate assignment of brown children or

black children to special education, underassignment of those same children to gifted programs, those are all part of larger patterns in which stereotypes and biases kind of reflect through actions.

“I think the key to this, in my point of view, is helping teachers understand the patterns are much bigger than them.”

All of us, said Anderson, can be uncomfortable having conversations about race, gender bias and other topics. The district’s role is to help teachers unpack that, so education can move forward to a more equitable place.

“When there is a lack of equity” she said, “you have not only a lack of opportunity, but voices that may be less willing to be heard.”

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Luke Lee was inspired to become a teacher by his sixth-grade teacher, who was white. He now hopes to inspire children who look like him. [NICK TRE. SMITH/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

Addressing minority underrepresentation in teaching ranks

By Jonna Lorenz The Capital-Journal

L

uke Lee has always been in the minority.

Growing up in Pittsburg, he was one of only two African-American kids in his class. The other was his cousin. Still, he always felt like people were there for him.

Now, as a teacher himself, he hopes to pass along that sense of support to the students in his second-grade classroom at

Junction Elementary in Turner School District in Kansas City.

“No matter what race that kid is, they’re going to have troubles in their life,” Lee said. “All kids need help.”

Lee, 26, was inspired to become a teacher by his sixthgrade teacher.

“She was just really positive and upbeat all of the time,” Lee said, noting that she related well with the kids. “She showed me what a teacher could really be.”

While Lee’s role model was a white woman, some say that students benefit from having role models who look like them.

“I think I had to learn things on my own about things I was curious about,” Lee said. “I missed out on a lot of things that I could have been exposed to as far as culture and things like that if I would have gone to a different school.”

Many of the students in his class are Hispanic, and Lee

tries to talk about Hispanic culture to show that he cares about them. He said the nation has come a long way toward promoting equality and diversity since the Brown v. Board decision, but there’s still work to be done.

“I think the future of the country can do a lot of great things if we allow ourselves to,” Lee said. “Even though segregation is not a true thing anymore, I think we segregate our minds a little bit.”

While the number of teachers of color has slowly increased, minorities remain underrepresented among teachers at public schools.

“I have seen very few students of color go through our program whether it be at the undergraduate or graduate level,” said Alice Sagehorn, chairwoman of teaching and leadership at Pittsburg State University. “We have seen an increase in the last few years in students of color at

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the graduate level, but that’s because we’ve been focusing on adding students of color to our population. It’s been working out better at the graduate level than at the undergraduate level.”

Nationwide, the number of teachers of color doubled from 1987 to 2012, and the percentage of nonwhite teachers in public schools rose from 12 percent to 17 percent, according to a report from the Brookings Institution. But the report said those numbers don’t reflect such concerns as lower rates of diversity among millennial teachers and greater diversity among students than teachers.

In Kansas, the percentage of white licensed personnel fell slightly to 93.08 percent at Kansas schools in the 2017-18 school year, compared with 94.78 percent in the 20142015 school years, according to data from the Kansas State Department of Education.

Various efforts are underway to increase the number of minority teachers at public schools in Kansas.

Pittsburg State University is working with Kansas City Kansas Public Schools to provide coursework to provisional teachers working toward teaching licenses.

The university also received a grant from the Laura Bush 21st Century Library program to train library media specialists for school libraries serving the nine Native American Tribes in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. Another grant focuses on schools with large populations of Hispanic individuals.

“When a child sees someone who looks like them, whose name sounds like theirs, who may even speak their language, they see themselves reflected in what the teacher does,” Sagehorn said. “That is critical to be able to relate with the teacher. The students don’t care what you’re teaching until they know that the teacher cares about them.”

She said one reason more

Luke Lee is a second-grade teacher at Junction Elementary in the Turner School District in Kansas City, Kan. He is a 26-year-old African-American man from Pittsburg who went to Pittsburg State University.

[PHOTOS BY NICK TRE. SMITH/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

“I think the future of the country can do a lot of great things if we allow ourselves to. Even though segregation is not a true thing anymore, I think we segregate our minds a little bit.”

Luke Lee

people of color don’t go into teaching is because of the lack of minority role models in schools.

“We are nowhere near where we need to be with teachers of color,” Sagehorn said. “It’s not just good for the kids of color to see teachers of color. It’s also good for

the majority kids, if you want to call it that, or white kids to see teachers of color in their classrooms, too.”

It’s getting harder to find teacher candidates, regardless of race, she said.

In fall 2018, there were 612 teacher vacancies across the state, compared with 513 the

year before, according to the Kansas Association of School Boards.

“It’s a problem everywhere, not just in Kansas, not just in Pittsburg State, just getting kids interested in becoming teachers anymore,” Sagehorn said, noting that various factors contribute to that, including low pay, high workload and negative perceptions perpetuated by social media.

Supporting diversity goes

beyond hiring demographics.

Heather Caswell, associate professor at Emporia State University, said the majority of teachers now are white women, and they can make efforts to provide exposure to other perspectives and be conscious of their own biases.

“I think we’re always a work in progress,” Caswell said.

Attending training and increasing their own exposure to diverse environments can help teachers create inclusive learning environments for students. Reflecting on what diversity means also can be helpful, Caswell said, noting that defining diversity based on race is limiting.

“I think it’s very difficult and very complex to think about and summarize it because every individual has a different perspective,” Caswell said. “I think it’s important to hear all of the voices, as well as consider the voices of those who are not present in the conversation.”

She approaches diversity through the lens of intersectionality, which encompasses the many overlapping factors that influence individuals and social groups and puts a wider lens on diversity, including race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender identity, ability and other factors.

“I think that’s the direction that I as an educator of educators would like to see the conversation going,” Caswell said.

She has developed a class, with her colleague Melissa Reed, called “Creating Brave Spaces: Understanding Intersectionality in Learning Spaces.” She emphasized the power of listening, sharing personal stories and finding the commonalities that connect people.

“I think diversity is relevant in all school districts,” Caswell said. “If we don’t have the conversation about race in all school districts in all communities, we’re just contributing to the system of oppression.”

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Angie Powers, English and AVID teacher at Olathe Northwest High School, leads the Gender Sexuality Alliance club at her school. [SUBMITTED]

Human rights advocates in schools seek LGBTQ protections

By Jonna Lorenz The Capital-Journal

W

hile Americans celebrate Brown v.

Board of Education decision’s role in the civil rights movement, human rights advocates continue to push for protections for LGBTQ individuals, and the issue has taken on significance in public schools.

“The landscape for LGBTQ students, as well as individuals who work in public education, is very much a patchwork across the country because we don’t have federal protection,” said

Ellen Kahn, director of the Children, Youth & Families Program at the Human Rights Campaign.

Lawmakers in Washington are grappling with the Equality Act, legislation to expand the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include protections against discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.

“I really like to emphasize that there are a lot of people in K-12 education who are very committed to equity and inclusion and they walk that talk every day,” said Kahn about the Human Rights Campaign. “It’s a bit

of the luck of the draw where you happen to go to school whether someone has your back or not.”

Victimization of LGBTQ students has gotten worse for the first time in a decade after years of improvement, according to the 2017 National School Climate Survey conducted by GLSEN, an organization that champions LGBTQ issues in K-12 education.

About 87 percent of LGBTQ students reported experiencing harassment or assault, according the survey, which included 23,000 LGBTQ individuals ages 13 to 21.

Leo Espinoza, career advocate at Topeka High, said the school’s GSA club has worked to create a community where transgender individuals feel comfortable and safe. [2018 FILE PHOTO/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

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The issue is personal for Angie Powers, English and AVID teacher at Olathe Northwest High School.

“Just being a teacher, you see very close up the impact that inequity has on students, so I’ve always been very passionate about that,” Powers said, “but I particularly became more interested in figuring out how to serve LGBTQ students because my own child came out as LGBTQ.” Powers, who is also the sponsor of Olathe Northwest’s Gender Sexuality Alliance club, received training as part of the HRC Foundation’s Welcoming Schools program, which provides training and resources related to diversity and LGBTQ issues.

She said one of the concepts that took longer for her to fully understand was that LGBTQ students are constantly “coming out,” with different levels of “outness” as they assess the safety of various settings. Creating that sense of safety is crucial to learning, she said.

“Particularly at the secondary level, one of the most important things we can do is ask students what they want to be called, both their names and their pronouns,” Powers said. “Having those teachers who respect that this is what I want to be called is really affirming and if you feel affirmed you can learn better.”

Powers was a 2018 Kansas Teacher of the Year finalist, and the distinction gave her the opportunity to make public appearances across state promoting education.

“I definitely saw less visibility (of LGBTQ issues) in some of the rural schools, not all of them, but that’s probably and area for growth,” she said.

The environment for LGBTQ students varies from classroom to classroom, and finding welcoming places within a school is important for LGBTQ students. GSA clubs provide a safe place for students at some schools to

Angie Powers, left, English and AVID teacher at Olathe Northwest High School, and students from her Gender Sexuality Alliance club pose with Rep. Brett Parker, D-Overland Park, on Equality Day 2019 at the Kansas Statehouse. [SUBMITTED]

socialize and interact with like-minded individuals.

The acronym has evolved from Gay Straight Alliance to Gender Sexuality Alliance in some schools.

Kevin Hedberg teaches government and is the sponsor of the GSA club at Washburn Rural High School in Topeka.

“We as a school really take bullying seriously and try to deal with it in any which way that we can,” Hedberg said.

“GSA has always been a haven for kids. It gives them a forum to be with each other and talk with each other and share experiences and just be kids with a commonality.”

The number of students involved in the club has varied over the years, reaching as high as 100 in some years.

Currently, there are about 50 students involved in GSA at Washburn Rural, and they meet once or twice a month.

He said the students in the club have said they feel like there is more acceptance in the community and a “live and let live attitude.”

“I don’t want this aspect

of tolerance to be spoiled by some of the hate that gets spewed out there,” Hedberg said. “A lot of the hate that gets spewed out there is coming from a relatively small segment of our society.”

Greg Fallon, sponsor of the GSA at Topeka High School, said the mission of the club has evolved over the years.

It was founded in the 1990s, after the HIV/AIDS epidemic drew attention for its impact on celebrities like Rock Hudson and Magic Johnson, and others, like Elizabeth Taylor, launched foundations and became advocates.

The Topeka High GSA club was part of that nationwide movement.

“A lot of our students either had gay family members or gay parents or they themselves were gay,” Fallon said.

“They were very interested in becoming more open as a community, for example marching in our homecoming parade like any other club.

They were also involved in political activities like demonstrating at the capitol.”

The club was dormant for a

while before renewed interested in the past decade or so as interest in equal rights issues began to rise. The club has kept up with current events and shifted its focus along with changes in society.

After the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed same-sex marriage and homosexuality became more generally accepted in society, the club began to focus more on transgender issues.

Topeka has seen the intensity on both sides of the issue, underscored by the Equality House, a rainbow-colored house, that is across the street from the notorious Westboro Baptist Church, known for years for picketing funerals of LGBT individuals.

“I can tell you that, speaking for past students, when those marriage laws passed, the Westboro Baptist Church became irrelevant. I think our students felt like we won the war,” Fallon said.

But the issue persists.

Earlier this year, a group of Republicans in the Kansas House sponsored a bill declaring same-sex marriage a

“parody” of the established order and describing any form of marriage outside the union of a man and woman the equivalent of engaging in bestiality or the wedding of a person and an inanimate object. In January, Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly restored employment protections to LGBTQ state employees that were eliminated by an executive order signed by Gov. Sam Brownback.

Leo Espinoza, a career advocate at Topeka High and a 2013 graduate of the school said the GSA has worked to create a community where transgender individuals feel comfortable and safe and provide answers to questions people have. Some students have created public service announcements to educate staff and students about the issues.

“One of the big things now is how do you have these conversations with family members or people in the greater community, because I would say high school students are pretty accepting,” he said.

BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: 65 YEARS LATER

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From left, Lester Lewis, Betty Coleman Moore, Judy Jackson and Irma Scroggins share fond memories of their time at the largely forgotten Pierce Addition elementary school they attended in the 1930s and 1940s. [THAD ALLTON/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

Pierce Addition school overlooked in Topeka desegregation struggle

By Sherman Smith The Capital-Journal

J

udy Jackson and her friends dashed down dusty paths of the Pierce Addition community without concern for the condition of the school they attended as children.

A sparse historical record portrays the two-room Pierce grade school as Topeka’s backyard disgrace, but Jackson’s memories of the largely forgotten

school are more forgiving.

“It was very casual and very comfortable for a little kid,” Jackson said. “Very safe. We walked those country streets, walked to school and walked home.”

The Pierce school, at 2235 S.E. Jefferson, served a predominantly black community just outside of city limits. Because it wasn’t part of Topeka Unified School District 501, Pierce wasn’t involved in the landmark Brown v. Board case that ended segregation in 1954.

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Often overlooked in the fight for equality, Pierce was the last all-black school in Shawnee County when it closed in 1959 after plunging into financial collapse.

Newspaper clippings, historical publications and surviving Pierce alumni offer insight into everyday life in the impoverished district’s school.

Jackson started at Pierce in 1937, along with Irma Scroggins and Betty Coleman Moore.

“We had a good education,” Jackson said. “It was hammered into us.”

A photo taken by Moore’s sister shows a building that looks like a farmhouse in an open field, with an outhouse behind the school.

Inside, a sliding accordionstyle wall separated space into two classrooms. One side held first through fourth grade, with fifth through eighth on the other side. Students were organized by rows for each grade.

Classes began each day with students reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and Lord’s Prayer.

They were called upon to talk about a current event from the newspaper.

Students walked home for lunch and returned within the hour. During recess, they played on swings, a teetertotter, merry-go-round and baseball lot.

Teachers delivered instruction in every subject and demanded discipline. When boys misbehaved, they were whipped with a switch. Girls extended their hand so the teacher could beat their palm with a thick ruler.

Scroggins said the students respected Jennie Robinson, who continued to teach at Pierce into the 1950s. The teacher would accompany children to the county courthouse, where they had to pass a test before graduating.

“I don’t think we were held back from learning anything,” Scroggins said. “We were just as smart as the others when

By the late 1950s, newspaper reports describe Pierce as a cashstrapped school in disrepair. [CAPITAL-JOURNAL ARCHIVES]

Pierce closed in 1959 as the last all-black school in Shawnee County.

On the final day of classes, Brown v. Board icon and Pierce teacher Lucinda Todd kept “a lonely vigil.” [CAPITAL-JOURNAL ARCHIVES]

“We had a good education. It was hammered into us.”

Judy Jackson

we went into the high school.”

Lester Lewis, who attended Pierce from 1931 to 1939, recalled singing the national anthem, as well as the negro national anthem, at school programs.

During the infamous dust

storm of 1935, Lewis said, “You just had to eat the dust and still stay in school.”

The Pierce district covered a 12-block area that extended south from the city limits at S.E. 21st to S.E. 25th, ranging from S.E. Monroe to S.E.

Gertrude Smith-Williams said the Pierce school was in awful condition by the time she attended in the mid-1950s. [THAD ALLTON/THE CAPITALJOURNAL]

Adams.

Settlement there began in the 1880s as a real estate development by Gen. H.A. Pierce, referred to by the Topeka Daily Capital as a businessman who “needs no introduction to the people of

Topeka.”

The newspaper in 1886 published an outline of Pierce’s Addition, which promised “homes for the people” with “every man under his own vine and fig tree.” Lots were available for $50 or $100.

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Irma Scroggins praised her teacher at Pierce and said the students were just as smart as their peers when they arrived at high school. [PHOTOS BY THAD ALLTON/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

Two years later, district voters gathered to select sites for two schools to be built — one at Quinton Heights and one in Pierce’s Addition. The Pierce school opened in 1892.

Colorful newspaper stories recall how boys at the school saved a widow’s home from fire and a melee that unfolded as a girl used a chair to attack the teacher who was whipping her brother.

Thelma Cherry, a 7-yearold student at Pierce, wrote a letter to Santa Claus in 1912 with the following requests: “I want a big doll that can open and close its eyes, a doll buggy, washboard and tub, a little iron, a little piano, a table and some chairs, and new dress and candy nuts.”

In 1914, a bond vote secured $600 in repairs for the Pierce school. The Topeka Plaindealer in 1916 said “it has been changed to a school equally as good as those of the city.”

Republican candidates for state and county offices were invited in July of 1916 to deliver five-minute speeches on the school grounds. An advertisement promised “ice cream and soda pop will be given free to all who attend. Women are especially

A photo in the lower left shows the two-room Pierce school as it appeared before World War II. Upgrades in 1950 added a classroom and inside bathrooms, as seen in the newspaper clipping.

invited.”

Betty Hall Jones, a songwriter and pianist who was born in Topeka in 1911, references the Pierce “Edition” school, a common misnomer, in an interview published in “Swingin’ on Central

Avenue,” a book that chronicles black jazz musicians in Los Angeles. Jones’ father worked for Santa Fe Railway, and her mother “got a job teaching at the rural school.”

“She found out the people were illiterate, so they had

night school,” Jones recalled in a 1995 interview. “She taught them to read, and I can remember now they put on plays. They sold ice creams for a nickel deal, and they helped the boys to buy instruments.

“This was all at a little place

called Pierce Edition, Topeka, Kansas. I started at her school when I was five. I think it was because Momma didn’t want to leave me alone. Almost everybody in Pierce Edition was with the Santa Fe too.”

Charles Henrie, who

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graduated from Pierce in 1949, said many of the fathers in the district worked for the railroad. He recalled a lowincome community marked by dirt roads, juke joints and countryside.

The school wasn’t entirely segregated. One white family was so poor, the Highland Park district wouldn’t accept the children, Henrie said. They were sent to Pierce instead.

“It was a black school, but the kids had to go to school someplace, and they were pretty poor,” Henrie said.

At the school, mesh wire covered rotting windows. In place of a cloak room, nails were pounded into the wall.

The washroom was a basin set on an orange crate.

“The school was in terrible shape when I was a kid,” Henrie said.

In September 1949, voters passed a bond issue by 104-1 vote to raise $10,000 for repairs. Students gained indoor restrooms, a fire alarm system, gas-powered furnace and library. An additional classroom was added for kindergarten.

The small, low-income district struggled to support the school’s $15,000 per year operating budget. By 1957, the school imposed a 31.1 mill levy in an area where the total assessed property value was $127,000 — or $1,575 per pupil. At the same time, the per pupil average for Topeka was $8,000.

The Pierce school — described in a Daily Capital story as “one of the educational disgraces of the state” — supported 83 students in 1957, when the district could no longer afford to pay its teachers or bills.

“It was awful,” said Gertrude Smith-Williams, who attended Pierce from 1954-59. “I don’t see how they managed it, but they did, I guess.”

Annexation brought the school into USD 501, which quickly moved to close the building. Pierce remained

open for another school year while the now-famous Topeka Board of Education reviewed redistricting plans. The Pierce students were divided between Highland Park Central and Quinton Heights.

On May 29, 1959, the Daily Capital announced the closing of the “last negro school.”

A photo shows Lucinda Todd — a monumental figure in the Brown v. Board case who taught in the final year at Pierce — standing alone in the classroom, keeping “a lonely vigil” as she stares out the window.

Two months later, the board voted to pay $300 to tear the building down.

ABOVE: Judy Jackson plotted the boundaries of the Pierce district, which ranged from S.E. 21st to S.E. 25th and S.E. Monroe to S.E. Adams, and the homes of various families in the community.

LEFT: Lester Lewis attended Pierce in the 1930s and remembers singing the national anthem and negro national anthem during school programs.

[PHOTOS BY THAD ALLTON/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

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Alice Lee points to herself in a March 3, 1949, photograph of her second-grade class at Monroe Elementary School. Lee said she thought she received a good education in the segregated school. Lee was born with very little pigmentation, a condition where her skin and hair have little color. [SANDRA J. MILBURN/HUTCHINSON NEWS]

ALICE LEE: LIVING WITHOUT ANGER

By Mary Clarkin Hutchinson News

P

eople wonder why Alice Lee isn’t angry.

The highest court in the country ruled 65 years ago that it was unconstitutional that Lee and other children were forced to attend segregated schools.

“I’ve learned a lot about it since I’ve been grown,” said the

78-year-old Topeka resident.

At the time, growing up amidst segregation — theaters without balconies were off limits, a hotdog purchased at a counter was “to go” and Topeka High School had a black attendant in homecoming royalty but never a black homecoming queen — was simply growing up.

“It was never said, but you just kind of knew,” Lee said.

Monroe Lee was born in February 1941 in Topeka, to Elmer Lee Sr. and Sybil Lee. She was about 13 or 14 years younger than a brother and sister.

“I don’t think my parents were expecting me,” she said.

The family lived at 2006 Topeka, across the street from fairgrounds that would become home of the Kansas Expocentre.

Her father had worked in the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration and later at Forbes Air Force Base. Her mother would die while Lee was young.

Lee was born with “very, very little pigmentation,” she said, giving little color to her skin and hair. Sight impairment required her to wear glasses. Her older siblings did not have the condition.

Lee’s parents were from

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Burlingame, where schools were integrated. In Topeka, though, elementary schools were segregated for the oldest Lee children and for Alice.

She started half-day kindergarten at Monroe Elementary School in 1946. The route she walked to Monroe, standing in the 1500 block of S.E. Monroe Street, required her to go north and then east past Harrison, Van Buren, Kansas and Quincy streets. Closer to the Lee home was the white children’s elementary school, Van Buren Elementary School, in the 1600 block of S.E. Van Buren Street.

Conversely, white children living closer to Monroe had to walk farther to reach Van Buren Elementary School, Lee pointed out.

Black children more disadvantaged than herself, in Lee’s opinion, were those living in North Topeka, around 1st and 2nd streets, and riding the bus to Monroe. A black teacher at Monroe drove them — and Lee — home after half-day kindergarten, she said.

As a child, Lee never wished she could attend Van Buren instead of Monroe.

“I guess when kids are little and playing and having a good time, you just don’t think about, ‘Should I really be here?’”

word wouldn't get back to the Topeka Board of Education, Lee said.

By the time the U.S. Supreme Court struck down separate-but-equal in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, Lee had graduated from elementary school and was attending the integrated Crane Junior High School.

She looks back on her education at Monroe with respect for her teachers.

Standards

Alice Lee is located in the second aisle from the left, third from the back, in this second-grade class photograph taken in 1949 at Monroe Elementary School, Topeka. Some people seeing the photo at the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in the old Monroe school ask about the girl who appears to be white. [PHOTOS BY SANDRA J. MILBURN/HUTCHINSON NEWS]

Plaintiffs None of the plaintiff parents in Brown v. Board of Education had children in Lee’s class, although Linda Brown — daughter of Oliver Leon Brown, who was namesake of the Brown v. Board of Education — was a couple of years younger than Lee and attended Monroe.

Many plaintiffs had children attending one of the other three black elementary schools in Topeka: Buchanan, Washington and McKinley.

Even though plaintiffs’ children were not in her class, she knew some of those children or would come to know them.

“I went to church with

Alice Lee attended kindergarten in this classroom at Monroe Elementary School in Topeka.

Monroe was one of four black elementary schools in Topeka.

(plaintiff) Shirley Hodison’s children, and they were at Buchanan,” Lee said.

She knows Victoria Lawton Benson, the daughter of plaintiffs Richard and Maude

Lawton. Nancy Todd, daughter of plaintiff Lucinda Todd, and Lee would come to know each other in high school.

Lee doesn’t remember her parents talking about the legal

fight for school integration. A lot of people didn’t know all the work that went into the case, Lee said. Meetings at plaintiff Lucinda Todd’s house were kept confidential, so

The teachers and principal at Monroe were black, Lee said, although every so often a white art teacher would visit the school.

“The teachers were always very helpful and they insisted that we get our work done.

In second grade, the teacher would stay in at recess to help me with my math, and after school, other children, too, could get help,” she said.

Because of Lee’s sight problems, her teacher, reading a big book to a semicircle of children, would place Lee in the middle of the circle and closer to the book.

“I thought it was a very good education,” Lee said, who said the school books at Monroe were not castoff books.

They sat in close quarters at Monroe, with each flat desktop and chair hooked to the unit in front and the one behind it. A misbehaving child could lose part of recess time or even get spanked on the hand by a teacher wielding a ruler.

“All of our teachers really expected you to do a good job.

I remember being told when we were going to be going to junior high to do our best because we were going to be going to school with whites and behave yourself,” she said.

Photo Students didn’t get their photos taken every year,

BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: 65 YEARS LATER

partly because parents couldn’t be expected to buy school pictures every year.

On March 3, 1949, a photo was taken of Monroe’s second-grade class. Sitting up smartly and smiling is Lee. Another girl in the photo is Luella Minner, who became a longtime friend and works at Topeka Public Library. Lee described what became of some of the other classmates: “This guy worked at Santa Fe shops and he’s a pastor now.”

“He’s in California and he used to be an officer at a bank.

He’s retired and he works with kids in Los Angeles who need extra help.”

“This one was a nurse at the V.A.” Several have died, she said.

The photo of Lee’s secondgrade class hangs just inside the entrance of Brown v.

Board of Education National Historic Site in the old Monroe school. A park ranger said visitors often ask about the girl who appears to be white.

Lee is interested in another photo displayed at the historic site. Also taken in 1949, it shows a fifth-grade class at the all-white Randolph Elementary School in Topeka.

“You don’t see much difference in our rooms,” she observed of the similarities between Monroe and Randolph.

Integration Topeka’s schools beyond elementary schools were integrated. Lee attended Crane Junior High for Grades 7, 8, and 9.

“You wanted to have at least one other black in your homeroom or in your classes,” she said, although there were some classes when she was the only black student.

Black players participated on sports teams, but there were no black cheerleaders, Lee recalled of junior high. She would go on to Topeka High School, graduating in 1959.

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Although the elementary schools in Topeka were segregated, schools for the upper grades were integrated. Lee graduated from Crane Junior High School in 1956. She stands, third row from the bottom and six people in from the right side of the photograph, wearing a white blouse and glasses. [PHOTOS BY SANDRA J. MILBURN/HUTCHINSON NEWS]

When her brother and sister attended the integrated Topeka High, there was a separate black basketball team, and the races separated for school parties. By the time Lee was in high school, there weren’t separate basketball teams and school parties.

Lee liked the structure of Topeka High School and said she always got help for her sight difficulties.

She had white friends among her classmates, but outside of school, students went their separate ways.

Some white students were unaware of the segregation that still determined where blacks could eat or see shows.

Around 4th Street, Lee said, was a black drugstore, barbershop and restaurants.

Finding a path Lee did not embark on her eventual career path immediately upon high school graduation. She tried but didn’t prove adept using a Dictaphone, noting that people who were totally blind were more skilled at it.

For a while, she did housework.

It was on a visit to New York City to see a friend that she was advised to look into educational job opportunities. The 1960s saw the birth of Head Start and the Follow Through project, federal programs geared at helping disadvantaged children.

“I got a job working with Flossie Holland,” Lee said. Holland had been her

Alice Lee has a few photographs showing family members, including her older sister. A photograph of Alice eating an apple is seen on the right.

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BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: 65 YEARS LATER

fifth-grade teacher at Monroe, and Holland’s husband, J.B. Holland, had been Monroe’s principal.

Lee became a paraprofessional with Follow Through.

“I didn’t think I could get a job as a teacher,” she said, but she was encouraged to pursue a bachelor’s degree at Washburn University while working. She began in 1969 and finished her bachelor’s work in the summer of 1981.

“I didn’t expect to get a (teaching) job,” she said, but a teacher was leaving in the spring so she applied for that job. Her career — 11 years as a para and 23 years as a teacher of mostly first grade — has not entirely ended. She is a preschool substitute paraprofessional at Topeka USD 501’s Pine Ridge Prep School.

On Fridays, she volunteers at the clothing bank for Doorstep Inc., which helps those in need.

“Different” Lee’s brother and sister have died. She lives on Topeka’s west side now.

She has visited the national historic site but said she still hasn’t seen everything.

On one visit, Lee recalled, she saw a letter dated March 1953 — about a year before the U.S. Supreme Court decision — from Topeka Superintendent of Schools Wendell Godwin to Minerva Washington, a black teacher.

Godwin cited the uncertain outlook with the court case pending and wrote that he was notifying teachers in the black schools that he could not offer them employment contracts for the 1953-54 school year.

“If the Supreme Court should rule that segregation in the elementary grades is unconstitutional, our Board will proceed on the assumption that the majority of people in Topeka will not want to employ negro teachers next year for white children.

“If it turns out that segregation is not terminated, there

The Kansas Capitol can be seen just past the edge of the former Monroe Elementary School, now the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka. [PHOTOS BY SANDRA J. MILBURN/HUTCHINSON NEWS]

“All of our teachers really expected you to do a good job. I remember being told when we were going to be going to junior high to do our best because we were going to be going to school with whites and behave yourself.”

Alice Lee

will be nothing to prevent us from negotiating a contract with you at some later date this spring. You will understand that I am sending letters of this kind to only those teachers of the negro schools who have been employed during the last year or two. It is presumed that, even though segregation should be declared unconstitutional, we would have a need for some schools for negro children and we would retain our negro teachers to teach them,” he wrote in part.

The impact of school segregation did not affect only students, but educators, too.

Lee hopes that letter remains displayed at the national historic site.

Where she is a substitute para, the majority of children are black, some are Hispanic, and some are white.

“I think the children now are so used to it. I don’t think they think a lot about it. They just interact and play with each other. There’s not a group off playing,” she said.

“It’s different now.”

Alice Lee has fond memories of her time attending classes at Monroe Elementary School, one of the segregated black elementary schools in Topeka. Lee was born with a genetic condition called “albinism” where the skin, hair, or eyes have little or no color. Because of her condition, Lee also has dealt with sight impairment.

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Couple recounts discriminatory practices in Topeka, impact on Hispanic community

By Katie Moore The Capital-Journal

O

n a warm summer day in July 1945, 15-yearold Julia Martinez and her friends wanted to go for a dip. The city’s swimming pools were segregated so they went to a river.

Martinez and one of the other teenage girls drowned.

Mike Martinez was born several years later so he never got to meet his sister.

Had the rules been different, “It would have made a big, big difference,” he said.

Julia Martinez most likely would have gone to Branner Annex to swim that day.

Blacks, whites and Hispanics had designated days they were allowed to use the pools.

Branner Annex was the primary school that MexicanAmerican children attended until pressure from parents to desegregate forced the city to commit to shutting it down in 1942, according to CapitalJournal archives.

Guadalupe Martinez, Mike Martinez’s wife, grew up in the Oakland neighborhood.

“The nearest pool was Garfield in North Topeka, and we could take the bus to North Topeka and get into the pool at Garfield but only, again, on certain days and I believe it was Thursday and Friday,” she said.

The pools would be drained and refilled with fresh water every so often. Whites got use of the clean water first, then Hispanics, then blacks, she said.

Mike Martinez learned “bits and pieces” about his sister as he was growing up but never heard the full story.

He did know “there was no going near the water.”

As an adult, Mike Martinez

Mike Martinez holds a photo of his sister Julia, who drowned in July 1945. She is buried at Mount Calvary Cemetery, 801 S.W. 8th Ave. [THAD ALLTON/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

was at a meeting when a man he casually knew told him he had been with his sister when she drowned. The man said he ran for help and later felt that if he could have ran faster, maybe the girls could have been saved.

Mike Martinez said learning about what happened to his sister was a painful process.

She was the family’s “pride

and joy” and considered a bright girl, he said.

Many places in Topeka had racist policies.

“We were allowed to go to the movies, but you had certain areas,” Guadalupe Martinez said. “Like at the Jayhawk (Theatre), you could only sit up in the balcony.”

She said it was the norm back then.

“It’s what we grew up in,” she said.

The couple said that racism became more apparent in high school whenever interracial dating occurred. They are both graduates of Topeka High School.

Guadalupe Martinez said she thinks the history of the Hispanic community in Topeka is often overlooked or

forgotten. She also said issues related to race have gone backward.

“I feel like we’ve taken five steps forward and now we’re three steps behind again,” she said.

Mike Martinez said he feels that issues have hit home.

“Especially here in Kansas,” he said. “I like Kansas, but people have strong views.”

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BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: 65 YEARS LATER

In 1954, students felt impact of integration in Topeka elementary schools

By Phil Anderson The Capital-Journal

N

ancy Jones and her twin sister Georgia Deatrick were students at Clay Elementary School when the 1954 Brown v.

Topeka Board of Education case was handed down.

Her all-white school would soon have its first black students.

Jones, now 73, recalls her parents sitting her down and telling her what to expect and, more importantly, how to behave.

“They told me to be friendly with the new students,” Jones said, “and to treat them with kindness and respect.”

Jones said when her fourthgrade class started in the fall of 1954, two black girls were in her room.

“Ironically, both were named Sharon,” Jones said.

“Sharon Quarles and Sharon Kayhill.”

It didn’t take long for Jones to become friends with the new girls, noting she “liked them both very much.”

Jones recalled no problems with white students accepting their new black classmates at Clay Elementary School.

At the same time, she said she didn’t realize until later the challenges her black classmates faced that first year.

“They gave up their schools,” Jones said. “They gave up their classmates, their teachers. It must have been very difficult for them.”

Clay Elementary School, a stately, two-story brick building, was located at 635 S.W. Clay. It closed its doors as a public school in 1975 but in more recent years has served as the home of Cair Paravel Latin School.

Mike Worswick stands outside Randolph Elementary School, 1400 S.W. Randolph, which he attended at the time of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. [PHIL ANDERSON/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

“I went from kindergarten through high school with most of my classmates from Clay Elementary School,” Jones said. “Some of us even went to college together.”

Of the two black girls who joined her fourth-grade class in 1954, Jones said she became especially good friends with Sharon Quarles, who previously had attended the all-black Buchanan Elementary School, 1195 S.W. Buchanan.

Jones grew up in the 700 block of S.W. Lincoln. She

said Quarles lived a couple of doors south of the Topeka fire station in the 800 block of S.W. Clay. The two grew up only about three blocks away from each other but never met until Clay school was integrated.

The two would visit each other’s homes that year and get to know each other’s families.

“I remember her mother and thinking what a beautiful woman she was,” Jones said.

“And she was.”

When the girls completed sixth grade, they headed off to junior high. Jones said Quarles ended up going to Boswell Junior High, formerly located at S.W. 13th and Boswell, where she was reunited with many of her former classmates at Buchanan School.

Jones, meanwhile, went to Roosevelt Junior High, when it was located near S.W. 1st and Quinton.

After their three years in junior high, the two would reconnect at Topeka High

School.

Growing up in a middleclass neighborhood in west-central Topeka taught Jones a healthy respect for others, regardless of their background.

It came as a shock to her a few years later when she realized the strife that integration brought to other locations across the nation.

“I turned on the television and saw the faces of these adults in Little Rock and Boston screaming at the

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Twin sisters Georgia Deatrick, left, and Nancy Jones stand in front of the former Clay Elementary School, 635 S.W. Clay, where their fourth-grade class was integrated following the 1954 Brown v. Topeka Board of Education case. The building now houses Cair Paravel Latin School. [PHIL ANDERSON/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

children as they were going to school,” Jones said. “It was really upsetting to me.

“We never saw anything like that in Topeka.”

Jones said she occasionally would see Sharon Quarles and Sharon Kayhill after she became an adult. She said both of them have died.

She said she last saw Sharon Quarles at the 40th reunion of the Topeka High class of 1963.

She said Quarles was ill at the time and that she died a short time later of ovarian cancer.

At Quarles’ funeral, Jones said, she looked around and

saw many former classmates from Topeka High.

“I thought, these were her classmates from Buchanan School, and it dawned on me how hard it must have been to leave them,” Jones said. “She had to have been a remarkably strong girl.”

Jones remembers the year that black students came to Clay Elementary School and says she considers herself to have benefited from integration that was brought about by the Brown v. Board case.

Another student who was in school at the time of the

Brown v Board case was Mike Worswick, who was in second grade at Randolph Elementary School, 1400 S.W. Randolph.

Worswick he doesn’t remember a great deal about black students coming to Randolph in 1954.

However, he said he does recall something related to the Brown decision that occurred several years later and that had a profound effect on him when he was in sixth grade.

“The thing I became aware of was, when I was in the sixth grade, a question came around to my parents — would I mind

having a black teacher?”

Worswick said.

His parents said they were fine with young Mike having a black teacher.

“It turned out to be one of the best things in my life,” said Warwick, a 1964 graduate of Topeka High School.

Worswick recalled the arrangement that year: A black teacher and a white teacher split assignments with the school’s two sixth-grade classes. A black teacher took one class in the morning while a white teacher had the other class. The teachers then switched classes for the

afternoon.

The black teacher in that arrangement was J.B. Holland, Worswick recalled. Six decades later, Worswick is keenly aware of the impact Holland had on him.

“J.B. Holland was my sixthgrade teacher for a half-day,” said Warswick, 72. “Having him be my teacher was a most rewarding experience for me. We had a white teacher for the other half of the day.

I couldn’t tell you his name.

But J.B. Holland sure made an impression on me. I’ve never forgotten him.”

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BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: 65 YEARS LATER

President Dwight D. Eisenhower was sworn into his second term in 1957

by Earl Warren, whom he’d appointed as chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1953. Warren played a key role in bringing about the 1954 Brown v.

Board of Education decision, which banned school segregation.

[TOPEKA CAPITAL-JOURNAL ARCHIVES]

Biographers debate Eisenhower’s effect on desegregation

By Tim Hrenchir The Capital-Journal

I

t was 1954, and the Supreme Court had just issued the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision banning racial segregation in schools.

In his first news conference afterward, President Dwight D. Eisenhower chose not to

strongly endorse it.

“The Supreme Court has spoken and I am sworn to uphold the constitutional processes in this country, and I will obey,” he said.

That statement helps illustrate that Eisenhower was lukewarm on desegregation, said one of his biographers, Jim Newton.

“He did what was required

of him but evidenced no enthusiasm for it,” Newton said recently.

David Nichols, another of Eisenhower’s biographers, agreed Eisenhower’s statement was lukewarm but said the president nevertheless felt strongly about desegregation and fought hard to accomplish it.

“It is much more important

what he DID, not what he said or failed to say,” he said.

Nichols, the retired academic dean at Southwestern College in Winfield, has written three books about Eisenhower: • “A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution,” published in 2008.

• “Eisenhower 1956: The President’s Year of Crisis — Suez and the Brink of War,” published in 2011.

• “Ike and McCarthy: Dwight Eisenhower’s Secret Campaign against Joseph McCarthy,” published in 2017.

Newton, a former Los Angeles Times writer and editor who is a full-time public policy lecturer at

BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: 65 YEARS LATER

UCLA, has written: • “Earl Warren and the Nation He Made,” published in 2006.

• “Eisenhower: The White House Years,” published in 2011.

Newton and Nichols agree that Eisenhower, who grew up in Abilene, Kan., helped lay the groundwork for school desegregation in 1953 by choosing then-California Gov. Earl Warren as the 14th chief justice of the Supreme Court.

At the time, Nichols stressed, Eisenhower was in the process of taking steps that brought about the desegregation of all Armed Forces combat units by October 1954.

Though President Harry S. Truman had issued an executive order requiring that in 1948, most of the actual enforcement of the order was accomplished by Eisenhower, a former five-star general who was highly respected by the military, Nichols said.

He noted that Eisenhower appointed Warren as chief justice while Congress was in recess on Sept. 30, 1953, at a time when the Brown v. Board case was already in front of the high court. Warren’s appointment was not confirmed by the Senate until March 1, 1954.

In the meantime, Nichols said, Warren was laying the groundwork for the unanimous decision the high court issued in the Brown case on May 17, 1954.

Newton said he didn’t think Eisenhower fully anticipated what he was getting in the area of civil rights when he appointed Warren.

Eisenhower was ambivalent about desegregation, having not made support for that a key issue during his successful presidential campaign in 1952, Newton said.

“I think Eisenhower’s heart was in the right place and his appointments helped him compile a good record, but i don’t think he understood the moral urgency of it — and Warren did,” Newton said.

He suggested that in

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Dwight D. Eisenhower, who called Kansas his home, was president at the time of the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that banned racial segregation in schools. [TOPEKA CAPITAL-JOURNAL ARCHIVE]

choosing Warren as chief justice, Eisenhower primarily “relied on his gut” and took into account that they both came from the moderate, internationalist wing of the Republican Party.

“Eisenhower certainly imagined that they were more alike than they were,” Newton said.

He said their differences in opinion were illustrated by a discussion that occurred at a White House stag dinner as the Supreme Court deliberated over the Brown case.

Newton’s book about Warren quotes from his memoirs in saying Eisenhower told Warren the Southern states were full of goodwill and good intentions.

It shares Warren’s story that Eisenhower said: “These are not bad people. All they are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big overgrown Negroes.”

When the high court subsequently banned school segregation, Eisenhower and his administration were “pulled in” to having to support that, Newton said.

Nichols disagreed. He said Eisenhower demonstrated

Family members of President Dwight D. Eisenhower unveiled a statue of him last October in the grounds of the Kansas Statehouse. Results released in 2017 from a C-SPAN historian’s survey of presidential leadership ranked Eisenhower as being fifth best among the nation’s first 44 presidents, from George Washington through Barack Obama. [OCTOBER 2018 FILE PHOTOS/ THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

his enthusiasm for civil rights by taking steps that included fighting successfully to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sending federal troops that year to Little Rock, Ark., after Gov. Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to block nine black students from entering a formerly all-white high school.

The federal troops subsequently escorted the “Little Rock Nine” into the school.

“That was an extraordinary thing, the first time federal troops sent into a Southern state since the Civil War,” Nichols said.

Newton suggested the steps Eisenhower took regarding Little Rock were more

about power than about desegregation.

“Eisenhower was somewhat ambivalent on desegregation, but he had no difficulty understanding force and power,” he said.

Eisenhower was not willing to allow a state governor to defy federal law and, in doing so, deprive Americans of their constitutional rights, Newton said.

“If his ambivalence on this issue is to his discredit, his willingness to respond forcefully is to his credit,” he said.

Nichols said he thinks, for the most part, historians have

not been fair to Eisenhower.

He attributed that to the profession’s consisting largely of “Ivy League, liberal Democrats” whose political beliefs differ from those Eisenhower held.

Still, Nichols said, Eisenhower’s reputation among those historians has improved in recent years.

He noted that results released in 2017 from a C-SPAN historian’s survey of presidential leadership ranked Eisenhower as being fifth best among the nation’s first 44 presidents, from George Washington to Barack Obama.

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BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: 65 YEARS LATER

The former Sumner Elementary School, 330 S.W. Western Ave., is owned by Los Angeles-based Southside Christian Palace and has stood empty for years. [FILE PHOTOS/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

Topeka’s other Brown landmark deteriorating

By Jonna Lorenz The Capital-Journal

A

cloud of uncertainty hangs over one spot considered a historic landmark in the Brown v.

Board of Education case.

The former Sumner Elementary School, 330 S.W. Western Ave., is on the National Register of Historic Places. But the school has sat empty for years, and the Ward Meade Neighborhood Improvement Association is appealing a decision by Shawnee County District Judge Richard Anderson in favor of the California church that owns the property.

“Besides the fact that Sumner is sitting in a

neighborhood vacant and deteriorating, which affects that neighborhood, there’s simply something about our heart and that story that needs and deserves preservation and telling,” said Karen Hiller, chairwoman of the Brown v Board Sumner Legacy Trust, established in 2012 and dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of the school.

“It drains us to see the life drain out of Sumner.”

Black minister Oliver Brown tried to enroll his daughter, Linda, in the all-white Sumner Elementary School, helping bring about the 1954 Brown v.

Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that banned racial segregation in schools.

The school was closed in

1996, bought by the city in 2002 and sold at auction to a representative of Archbishop W.R. Portee, founder of Los Angeles-based Southside Christian Palace in 2009 for $89,000.

The Ward Meade NIA sued the church in 2018, claiming the church had violated deed restrictions and maintained a public and private nuisance.

But Anderson ruled that the NIA lacked standing to pursue three of its claims.

“As a woman of color, I am honored and appreciative for what Sumner Elementary School represents and both saddened with the reminder of the struggle for equality and justice that took place in history,” Ward Meade NIA

President Dawn Downing said in an email. “Quite frankly we have come a long way, but we still have work to do. But nevertheless, I’m excited to be living in the neighborhood of such a significant part of history, and the ability to walk or drive past it daily is a bonus.”

Sumner won’t be included as a stopping point on historic tours and events tied to the Brown v. Board 65th anniversary celebration. But Downing remains optimistic for the future.

“My hopes for the future of Sumner Elementary is that the process for restoration begins very soon,” she said, expressing hope that the property will become “a place that complements the Ward Meade

community and contributes to the economic growth of the community and city of Topeka, while also becoming a part of the Civil Rights Trail story.”

“I am also hopeful that the owners of Sumner and the Topeka community can come to an agreement and create a lifelong thriving plan to preserve this historic landmark.”

Hiller said the Sumner Legacy Trust had very good communication with the church early on, and the trust group did a variety of volunteer efforts, including cleaning up the building and grounds and putting on a 60th anniversary event at the site. But a grant application for the building failed and

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“Besides the fact that Sumner is sitting in a neighborhood vacant and deteriorating, which affects that neighborhood, there’s simply something about our heart and that story that needs and deserves preservation and telling.”

Karen Hiller, chairwoman of the Brown v Board Sumner Legacy Trust

relationships deteriorated.

The death of Portee in 2015 also complicated the matter.

Still, Hiller is hopeful for an eventual resolution and positive outcome for the school.

“Something went wrong.

But there are good people all the way around, in my opinion,” Hiller said.

In late 2017, experts from Georgia State University’s World Heritage Initiative, visited the Sumner Elementary School, along with the Monroe Elementary School and the downtown post office that formerly was a federal courtroom involved in the Brown v. Board case. They examined sites across the nation for consideration to be part of a U.S. Civil Rights Trail nomination for designation to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites. Sumner wasn’t included but could be added later, Hiller said.

The school also is part of Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area, which includes sites in eastern Kansas and

Karen Hiller, is chairwoman of the Brown v. Board Sumner Legacy Trust, established in 2012 and dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of Sumner School. [THAD ALLTON/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

western Missouri.

The church has had little communication with the community during pending litigation.

“We believe we’ll be successful,” said John Hutton, a lawyer representing the church said of the lawsuit. He referred questions to court filings, which detail the church’s position in the lawsuit.

The school was purchased with the intent of rehabilitating it for use as a community center and human rights memorial, but the church has been unable to afford substantial renovations, which may not be made for many years, according to court filings.

The Ward Meade NIA asked the court to order the church to comply with three deed restrictions: 1) to repair, renovate and maintain the

building as envisioned, 2) to open the building as a public educational memorial, and 3) to provide a place for NIA meetings. The NIA also asked the court to enjoin the church from continuing to maintain a public and private nuisance, comply with property and building codes and award damages.

The church contended that the “deed restrictions” should be referred to as “notations,” questioned the scope of enforceable obligations and contended that mandated repair and maintenance obligations have expired. The church also challenged the NIA’s standing to enforce the first and second deed restriction and the nuisance claims and claimed that it hasn’t violated the second and third deed restrictions because its

use of the property involves renovation and it is not yet safe or fit for use. The church also established that it is compliant with city codes, having resolved all code compliance cases.

The church applied for two grants between 2009 and 2015, but neither grant was awarded, and the church lacks the money to make substantial repairs to the school. It estimates renovation will cost $7 million, and doesn’t expect that to happen for at least 15 years. Last summer, a new roof was installed on the school and various other general repairs and cleaning were done.

Jack Alexander, a native Topekan and former city water commissioner and Kansas Corporation Commissioner, said he tried to

talk with church leaders when they were cleaning up the site last summer but was asked to leave. A 1949 graduate of Topeka High, Alexander attended the allblack Washington Elementary School.

“I do not live in that area. I have no strong feelings about the building itself,” he said, noting that any of the schools that were part of the district during the Brown v Board decision could claim historical significance along with other sites, such as a nearby filling station that was the first to be franchised to a black man.

But he applauded the neighborhood for its interest in the building and said he wondered why the church doesn’t sell it.

“Just to buy it and leave it sit as it is doesn’t help anyone,” Alexander said.

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BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: 65 YEARS LATER

About 50 actors will be part of the play “Smoke Behind Closed Doors,” which will be performed at Topeka High School.

Play recounts pivotal role of Topekans in Brown v. Board case the story around those two because I don’t think a lot has been mentioned about them.” laywright Tyson Williams In order to maintain hissaid his new productorical accuracy, Williams tion was created to bring interviewed several people untold stories to the forefront associated with the case and to keep Topeka’s role in including Marquis Burnett, the Brown v. Board case alive.

McKinley Burnett’s son.

“Smoke Behind Closed From Marquis Burnett, Doors” will be performed at 7 Williams learned about p.m. May 10 and 11 at Topeka the Board of Education of High School.

Topeka’s efforts to maintain The play looks at the efforts segregation. At meetings, the of such Topekans as McKinley board would try to tire out Burnett, Lucinda Todd and McKinley Burnett and other Katherine Carper Sawyer as activists by stretching meetthe case developed. ings into the late hours and “The story takes shape with hearing their comments last.

McKinley Burnett who was McKinley Burnett saved his a local advocate and activist vacation time so he could be here in Topeka leading up to, involved in the case and he and so I would say mid-to-latehis family also endured death 40s, and during the case itself threats. and he was also the president Marquis Burnett, 80, said of the NAACP at the time,” he was glad to see his father’s Williams said. story being told on stage.

Todd was secretary of the “It’s pleasant to see people NAACP and much of the orga- celebrating this after 65 nizing took place at her home. years,” Marquis Burnett said.

“She was really this trail“Hopefully it’s informative to blazer that really kind of put young kids.” the legs to the table,” Williams Robbie Williams will play said. “I really kind of built McKinley Burnett.

Actors go through a table reading in April for “Smoke Behind Closed Doors,” which highlights Topekans who were involved in the Brown v. Board case. [PHOTOS BY KATIE MOORE/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

By Katie Moore

The Capital-Journal

P

Tyson Williams rehearses a scene from the play he wrote “Smoke Behind Closed Doors.”

“It’s a great opportunity to play a man that was influential in this town and the civil rights movement,” he said.

Tyson Williams also interviewed Katherine Carper Sawyer, the only child thought to have testified in the case.

“Interviewing her was amazing because you never think that you’re going to be sitting in front of these people

who were such a huge part of history,” he said.

Tyson Williams toured the post office in downtown Topeka where Sawyer testified and conducted a lot of research.

“There is a vast wealth of knowledge and account that exists that I don’t think has been heard and so that’s really what ‘Smoke Behind Closed

Doors’ is really about,” he said. “Really these stories are riveting.”

About 50 actors, including many youths, are part of the production.

Keeping the story alive is important, Tyson Williams said.

“I think that the history if not continuously told in creative and inspiring ways will be lost,” he said. “For someone who works in Topeka, up until this point, I have not really known a lot about the case. So I’m on a mission to educate not only my community, but also young persons because we now have the freedoms and privileges because of this case.”

Williams, who grew up in Lawrence and has lived in Topeka for about four years, said issues raised in 1954 are still relevant in a “spooky and scary way.”

“There’s no doubt there’s a lot of work to do,” he said.

“The fabric of this country still bleeds.”

Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at smokebehindcloseddoors.com.

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KTWU documentary features alumni of Topeka’s segregated schools

By Katie Moore The Capital-Journal

M

ore than a dozen participants in a new KTWU documentary offer insight on attending Topeka’s segregated elementary schools.

“I Just Want to Testify” will debut at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, May 15, at the Brown v. Board National Historic Site. It will air at 8 p.m. on Thursday, May 16, and at 8 p.m. on Monday, May 27, on KTWU. Planning began several months ago and the taping, a reunion of sorts, took place March 23.

“It’s humbling,” Carolyn Wims-Campbell said of being part of the project. “I’ve very thankful this documentary is being produced to tell our story.”

The alumni attended one of the city’s four all-black elementary schools — Buchanan, McKinley, Monroe and Washington.

Wims-Campbell, who went to McKinley from kindergarten to sixth grade, offered a perhaps unexpected perspective.

“We knew the teachers loved us and cared for us,” she said, adding that she was thankful for her elementary school experience at a segregated school.

When integration occurred, “We lost out,” WimsCampbell said.

She recalled feeling sorry for her brother who went to Grant Elementary, by then integrated.

Jack Alexander said segregation was the only thing he knew as a child.

“I really didn’t feel segregation even though I was in that setting,” he said. “In my mind, we had everything we needed, teachers were super.”

The alumni emphasized the high expectations the black teachers had for their

KTWU general manager Eugene Williams leads a discussion during taping of the documentary “I Just Want to Testify.”

[PHOTOS BY KATIE MOORE/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

Eugene Williams, general manager of KTWU, leads a table reading for the documentary in February.

More than a dozen alumni participate in the taping of the documentary “I Just Want to Testify” at KTWU’s studios on the Washburn University campus.

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BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: 65 YEARS LATER

“It’s humbling. I’ve very thankful this documentary is being produced to tell our story.”

Carolyn Wims-Campbell

students and lamented that many of the educators lost their jobs when integration took place.

Norma Avery attended Washington for kindergarten and first grade.

“We used to walk past Parkdale to get to Washington,” she said, adding that she would see other kids playing on the school playground.

As a child, she wondered why she had to walk to a different school when Parkdale was right there.

“I didn’t understand it,” she said.

In second grade, the schools were integrated. At Parkdale, a teacher was intent on making her right-handed.

“She made it exceptionally hard for me,” said Avery, who suspects she was treated poorly because she was black.

The group reminisced about the days when children played marbles and knew that if they misbehaved outside of their house, word would get back to their parents faster than they could bicycle home.

“We had a strong neighborhood,” said Clarence Martin.

Several black-owned businesses thrived around 4th and Kansas until “urban renewal” wiped them out, said Alonzo Harrison.

When integration occurred, Wanda Dixon said she remembers wondering why students at Lowman Hill didn’t have to change schools but students from Buchanan did.

Most of the students attended Topeka High School.

Pamela Johnson-Betts pointed out that black female students had less opportunities than males because they were excluded from athletics.

“You still don’t have a place to shine,” she said.

Deborah Dandridge said she enjoyed the diversity, including Hispanic and Jewish

Pamela Johnson-Betts, left, and Eugene Williams look at a photo of McKinley Elementary students from 1949 prior to filming the “I Just Want to Testify” documentary. [KATIE MOORE/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

students, though a hierarchy existed. She learned that issues of diversity weren’t necessarily binary, but “far more complex.”

Many of the students went on to have successful careers in education.

Beryl New said being told to go to secretary school motivated her to get her doctorate.

She was the principal of Topeka’s Highland Park High School for seven years and is

now the certified personnel manager for Topeka Unified School District 501.

Johnson-Betts is the executive director of the Topeka Public Schools Foundation.

Wims-Campbell served on the USD 501 school board and the Kansas State Board of Education.

Dandridge is an archivist at the University of Kansas’ Spencer Research Library.

Community organizer

Marty Patterson has been working on the alumni project for about two years and has been intent on getting the group’s voices heard.

“When you have them all together you get the story and the energy that was of that time,” she said.

Topeka’s story is unique because integration occurred without any violence, she added.

Eugene Williams, general

manager of KTWU, hosts the documentary. He said the participants experienced a drastic change in American culture and politics during the Brown era.

“I don’t think a lot of people realized that they were making history at the time,” Williams said. “So it’s extremely important and it’s told from their perspective. That’s what really great about this: They’re telling it.”

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The mural in the Kansas Capitol shown to a group of visiting public schoolchildren reflects importance of the Brown v. Board of Education decision in fostering a greater sense among the three branches of state government in terms of how adequacy and equity of state financing of K-12 education can change lives. [PHOTOS BY TIM CARPENTER/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

Court nudges public schools toward equitable educational opportunity

By Tim Carpenter The Capital-Journal

D

ecades of intervention by Kansas Supreme Court justices in the state’s public school system is harnessed to harsh reality that festering inequities in educational opportunity often divide wealthy and impoverished districts serving more than 450,000 children.

Lawsuits reaching the state’s highest court in Kansas have exposed stark differences in strength or weakness of the property tax base in individual schools districts relative to the number of students served.

This inequity of academic

promise, based on zip code, can be illustrated by comparing the Burlington to Galena districts, as well as the districts in Shawnee Mission and Kansas City, Kan. Both Burlington and Galena enroll less than 1,000 students. Imposition of 1 mill in property tax raises $496,000 in Burlington, but just $23,000 in Galena. The per-student gap is a yawning $600. A similar picture can be drawn in Shawnee Mission and Kansas City, which enroll in excess of 20,000 students.

The 1-mill tax generates $3.6 million for Shawnee Mission children, but $750,000 for kids in the Kansas City

district. The gap in these neighboring districts stands at $100 per student.

“That’s a big equity issue,” said Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat and retired public schoolteacher. “We can’t leave the children of Galena behind. We’ve got to make sure the school finance formula treats them in an equal manner.”

In response to Kansas litigation on school funding, the Supreme Court has split consideration of constitutional issues into two parts. The equity portion is defined by how tax dollars are divided among districts in the

House Speaker Ron Ryckman, R-Olathe, says the state government’s latest attempt to satisify the Kansas Supreme Court with an increase of $90 million annually for public school districts is financially unsustainable and reflects another “politically expedient” maneuver doomed to failure.

quest for balance in opportunity. The adequacy piece, which continues to vex the Legislature, refers to overall levels of funding to the K-12 system.

Rep. Russ Jennings, a Republican from Lakin in southwest Kansas, said most

Kansans appreciated that generations of students living outside wealthy districts couldn’t be allowed to slip through educational cracks.

It’s inequitable to permit students in Galena or Kansas City to suffer educationally simply because those districts

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BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: 65 YEARS LATER

Student demographics across Kansas Schools have experienced a growing minority population with some districts becoming decidedly majority-minority. % white State of Kansas

Rep. Russ Jennings, R-Lakin, says intervention by the Kansas Supreme Court to sustain state education funding equity among wealthy and low-income districts is key to preventing a generation of Kansas children from falling through the cracks.

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2018-2019

Decades of lawsuits on public school finance in Kansas and resulting decisions by the state Supreme Court reflect harsh reality of inequities and inadequacies in educational opportunity that divide students attending wealthy and impoverished districts. [PHOTOS BY TIM CARPENTER/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

cannot realistically raise local property tax revenue to match Burlington or Shawnee Mission, he said.

“Equity is important,” Jennings said. “The risk is that if the equity piece goes away, everything from the right one-third of Kansas to the Colorado border is at risk.”

In the past 20 years, three education cost studies authorized by the Kansas Legislature have concluded state funding didn’t meet the state’s educational goals for students. Responsibility for these shortcomings has been assigned to raw partisan politics; conflicting tax or budget priorities; economic trends, including influence of a staggering national recession; and an evolving sense of what amounted to educational funding equity and adequacy under Article 6 of the Kansas Constitution.

Schools For Fair Funding, a coalition of 40 school districts that includes the current Gannon vs. Kansas lawsuit plaintiffs Dodge City, Hutchinson, Wichita and Kansas City, Kan., has sought to compel massive increases in state aid to education. For the

most part, the state’s judicial system has sided with Schools for Fair Funding since initiation of the suit in 2010.

A three-judge panel in Shawnee County District Court found the Kansas system of funding education to be unconstitutional, which set the stage for a power struggle among the state’s three branches of government.

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in 2017 against constitutionality of a law adding $293 million over two years in state aid to the 286 public school districts.

Justices lauded work by legislators to improve the state’s funding formula, but the court said overall spending remained unconstitutionally low and was especially unfair to low-income districts.

In 2018, the Supreme Court accepted the five-year, $525 million surge in state spending on education. The justices said the revision dealt with funding equity problems, but the court ordered lawmakers to deal with six years of unfunded inflationary costs absorbed by

districts.

Gov. Laura Kelly and the 2019 Legislature responded by adopting a new law increasing K-12 funding by $90 million annually over the next four years.

“After a significant increase in funding last year,” Kelly said, “this plan addresses the Kansas Supreme Court ruling and represents what we all hope to be the final step towards fully funding our schools and maintaining adequate funding in the years to come.”

House Speaker Ron Ryckman, R-Olathe, said state government had struggled to abide by financial commitments linked to attempts to bring an end to the barrage of school litigation. The new law repeats old mistakes and isn’t financially sustainable, he said.

“We have a responsibility to think beyond what is politically expedient in the short term,” Ryckman said. “As Kansans, we can do better.”

Justices of the Supreme Court must engage in oral

Hays USD 489

1998-1999

Newton USD 373

1998-1999

Pittsburg USD 250

1998-1999

Dodge City USD 443

1998-1999

Hutchinson USD 308

1998-1999

Salina USD 305

1998-1999

Pratt USD 382

1998-1999

El Dorado USD 490

1998-1999

Leavenworth USD 453

1998-1999

McPherson USD 418

1998-1999

Ottawa USD 290

1998-1999

Wellington USD 353

1998-1999

2018-2019

41

37

63 89 25

42

58

21

79 5

95 82

2018-2019

18

81

19

62

2018-2019

38 88

12

67

2018-2019

2018-2019

11

75

2018-2019 1998-1999

36

59

1998-1999

Garden City USD 457

19

81

1998-1999

Topeka Public Schools 1998-1999 2018-2019 USD 501 Washburn Rural, Topeka USD 437

% minority

33

48

52

17

2018-2019

2018-2019

83 83 66

34 84 40 94

2018-2019

2018-2019

Source: KSDE

argument and work through thick legal briefs before issuing a ruling no later than June 30 — a decision capable

6

83

17

90

10

81

2018-2019

2018-2019

16

60

2018-2019

2018-2019

17

70

19 30

58

42 94 78

6 22

92

8

87

13

87

13

80

20 GATEHOUSE MEDIA

of drawing to close years of caustic litigation or inspiring a fresh round of legal skirmishes.

BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: 65 YEARS LATER

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Several events have been organized to commemorate the Brown v. Board decision including a day of activities on Wednesday, May 15, at the national historic site, 1515 S.E. Monroe. [FILE PHOTO/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: CELEBRATION EVENTS

By Katie Moore The Capital-Journal

Several organizations — including the Brown v. Board Sumner Legacy Trust and The Brown Foundation — will host community events to celebrate and examine the impact of the case.

will be performed at 7 p.m. at Topeka High School. Tickets are $15.

Sunday, May 12 • A Steven Massey dance performance titled "A Movement in Desegregation" will take place at 3 p.m. at TPAC. Tickets are $10.

Friday, May 10

Monday, May 13

• A symposium featuring community members from 1954 will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Topeka Performing Arts Center. Carlton Waterhouse will be the keynote speaker. The event is free.

• A play by Tyson Williams, "Smoke Behind Closed Doors," will be performed at 7 p.m. at Topeka High School. Tickets are $15.

• Oral histories day from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library.

Kits will be available for participants to record their stories. The event is free.

Saturday, May 11 • A play by Tyson Williams, "Smoke Behind Closed Doors,"

Tuesday, May 14 • The Mulvane Art Museum will host an exhibit on ideas about freedom of expression and civil liberties from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The event is free.

• At 11 a.m. at the Mulvane, Brett Beatty, assistant director of museum operations and

programs, will present a talk titled "Unanimous" on the impact of the Brown v. Board case. The gallery talk is free.

University of Kansas professor Kevin Willmott will lead a talk after the showing. The festival is free.

Wednesday, May 15

Friday, May 17

• Brown v. Board Day at the national historic site, 1515 SE Monroe. From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., the site will feature exhibits, ranger talks and self-guided tours. The event is free.

• At 5:30 p.m., the national historic site will host a preview and discussion of the new KTWU documentary "I Just Want to Testify." The event is free.

• A community conversation “Real Talk, Next Steps” will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 600 S.W. Topeka Blvd. Ruben West is the keynote speaker. The event is free.

• A community celebration will be held from 5 to 10 p.m. at the Brown v. Board outdoor mural across the street from the national historic site. The free event will include music, spoken word and food trucks.

• The Brown Foundation and Washburn University School of Law Diversity Committee will host a banquet at 7 p.m. at Washburn’s Bradbury Thompson Alumni Center.

Shannon LaNier will give featured remarks. LaNier is a ninth

Thursday, May 16 • The Brown v. Board Film Festival at Jayhawk Theatre will start at 10 a.m. with a screening of "Daughters of the Dust," followed by "The Learning Tree" at 1 p.m.; "Lean on Me" at 3 p.m.; "The Marva Collins Story" at 5 p.m.; and "BlacKkKlansman" at 7 p.m. Oscar winner and

direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, an author and a television anchor in Houston. Sen. Anthony Hensley and artist Michael Young will be recognized. Tickets are $35.

RSVP is required by May 8.

More information can be found at www.washburnlaw.edu/ brownat65/.

Saturday, May 18 • Bus tours will take visitors to historic sites in Topeka associated with the Brown v. Board case. The tours start at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. at the Brown v.

Board National Historic Site. The bus tour is free.

Sunday, May 19 • A bus tour will take passengers to historic sites in Topeka associated with the Brown v.

Board case. The tour starts at 1 p.m. at the Brown v. Board National Historic Site. The event is free.

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