My Dilemma: School Busing and the East Portland Community in the 1970s
A Story in the West Side Church Series--See the full series at https://forthtellinginnovation.substack.com/t/west-side-church-stories.
My Dilemma: School Busing, and the East Portland Community in the 1970s
It was a moral and spiritual dilemma plus a community development issue for me in the eastern part of the Portland community in Louisville, KY in the mid-1970s.
When a federal judge mandated the merger of the Louisville city schools and the Jefferson County schools followed by the initiation of busing to achieve racial and educational equality it seemed fine at first.
I was an advocate of the merger to provide more equitable education across social, economic, racial, and ethnic populations.
As a pastor in the eastern Portland community, I was an even bigger advocate because of what I knew about the lack of effectiveness of the elementary school in that area.
Roosevelt Elementary School
Roosevelt was a challenging situation. The school was more than 100 years old, with a portion of the buildings constructed in 1865. Their students came from a cacophony of functional and dysfunctional homes. Primarily dysfunctional.
Households tended to be lower income with a few lower middle-class households. The educational level of parents—too often with only one parent in the home—seldom included adults with a high school education.
Therefore, home-based support for learning was low. Likely a minority of parents could help with homework.
The school had a significant percentage of racial and ethnic diversity, although most students were White.
Good News About School Busing?
Roosevelt Elementary experienced a surprise in the formal plan for busing children. Of all the schools in Jefferson County, Roosevelt was the only one where busing was not required.
It was the only racially balanced school in the whole county.
We took this as good news. This meant elementary age children would be able to remain in the community for school with proximity to parents who did not have a car available to them during the day or at all.
This also affirmed the reality that this side of the Portland community had few social institutions that held the community east of 22nd Street together.
The social institutions of significance were the elementary school, our church, and a community action organization. The social foundation of the neighborhood would be harmed without a neighborhood-based school.
I saw this, yet I continually said to leaders in the neighborhood that we needed to be ready for school busing and step up with extra efforts of neighborhood-based ministry.
Good News Did Not Last Long
The first year of school busing went fine. A few students were bused to Roosevelt from outside the neighborhood as the school had additional student capacity. Most teachers, administrators, and social workers and counselors remained the same.
The fragility of the neighborhood held.
But at the end of the first year of busing, it was announced that beginning the second year Roosevelt would be closed, and the children bused to other schools.
This sent a shock throughout the neighborhood.
It was easy to think Roosevelt was closed because it was the only school in the county without busing. Perhaps political pressure called for the closing of Roosevelt.
The school system insisted it had to do with the condition of the aging building. Retrofitting was so costly that it was not a good investment.
Neighborhood leaders realized the negative impact of closing the school. They organized a “Save Roosevelt” campaign.
My Dilemma
As a supporter of school busing to achieve racial integration and equal education access, I expected students in our neighborhood to be bused.
But then I found out Roosevelt was the only school exempted from busing. At that point I supported the neighborhood leaders.
Now that the school would close, should I switch back to my long-term default position?
As a neighborhood leader I supported the campaign to keep Roosevelt school open. As a social activist I prepared myself and others for how we would address neighborhood ministry needs once the school closed.
How would you have responded to this dilemma?