Degree Name

Education Specialist (EdS)

Semester of Degree Completion

1978

Thesis Director

Robert V. Shuff

Abstract

During the school year 1976-77, Decatur School District #61 completed the desegregation of the schools so that they were in compliance with the plans drawn up for the State of Illinois under direction of the State Board of Education and State Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Joseph Cronin. This paper is an account of the programs instigated and carried out during the second year the Decatur plan was in operation in Orville Spencer School, Decatur, Illinois.

Orville Spencer School is situated in the northeast section of the city of Decatur. The population here is mainly blue-collar workers and low income families. Traditionally no Blacks had been allowed to live in this area. In the first attempt to desegregate the Decatur schools in 1969-70, this school was made a primary school, K-3, and 13% of the population were Black students bussed from the inner city. Under the direction of a new board of education, the school was changed back in 1971-72 to a K-6 school with a 4% Black population. It remained thus until the 1976-77 desegregation. At this time Orville Spencer school was paired with an inner city school, Durfee School, which was predominately Black. Spencer School was made a primary K-3 school, and Durfee School was made a 4-6 intermediate school. Spencer received all children grade K-3 in the Spencer-Durfee area. Durfee received all grade 4-6 children from the same area. Spencer School now had 33% Black students.

The first year of the desegregation was difficult. There was much parental opposition. There was much unrest in the student body that resulted in fights on the playgrounds.

The University of Illinois received a Title IV Desegregation Training Institute Grant to be held in Decatur, Illinois. The institute concerned itself with the following topics: people awareness, achievement/motivation, behavior, alternative programs and practices, and community. As a result of this workshop, the faculty at Spencer School and the principal decided to undertake this project.

This paper discusses the programs that were instituted at Spencer School involving parental participation and the student body. In all there were fifteen different programs that were available for parents to participate in. Some were very successful, some were not. They involved the PTA, a parents club, a preschool class, parnts workshop, a special bus program to provide transportation to the school for various activities, classroom teas, and an inservice program. One of our objectives was to raise the achievement level of the children. We had seven special innovative programs introduced into the school that were specially funded by the central office. We also participated in the Illinois State Gifted Programs with programs in the area of leadership training, math, and creative writing. We had a special "snack" program at 9:00 each morning. This was to provide for the lack of breakfast or to compensate for the drop in the blood sugar level of the children because of the sugar laden breakfast they might have had earlier. Besides these specially identified programs, there were many other programs carried out in the school during the year that are discussed in the paper.

In conclusion we found that we were making a small headway into our integration program. The achievement level was slightly improved, the PTA was again functioning, and we were making slow progress in integrating our Black and White parents into a community. We plan to carry on from this point.

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