QUALITY ED. FOR ALL CHILDREN, INC. v. SCHOOL BD., ETC., ILL.

• Decision Date: 16 August 1973
• Docket Number: No. 70 C 16.,70 C 16.
• Citation: 362 F. Supp. 985
• Parties: QUALITY EDUCATION FOR ALL CHILDREN, INC., et al., Plaintiffs, v. SCHOOL BOARD OF SCHOOL DISTRICT #205 OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY, ILLINOIS, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

362 F. Supp. 985

QUALITY EDUCATION FOR ALL CHILDREN, INC., et al., Plaintiffs, v. SCHOOL BOARD OF SCHOOL DISTRICT #205 OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY, ILLINOIS, Defendants.

No. 70 C 16.

United States District Court, N. D. Illinois, W. D.

August 16, 1973.

Donald S. Frey, Frey Wilcher & Lapidos, Evanston, Ill., for plaintiffs.

John S. McCreery, Springfield, Ill., for Supt. of Public Instruction.

Dale F. Conde, Pedderson, Menzimer & Conde, Rockford, Ill., for School Board.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

BAUER, District Judge.

This cause comes on the plaintiffs' petition for a temporary injunction restraining the School Board of School District # 205 of Winnebago County, Illinois ("School Board") from carrying forward on a plan known as the "Voluntary Desegregation Program" approved by the School Board at its meeting on April 30, 1973.

The named plaintiffs are all citizens of the United States and residents of School District # 205 of Winnebago County, Illinois. Some of the named plaintiffs are individuals while others are community organizations which are allegedly voluntary associations of citizens, most of whom are also citizens of the school district and taxpayers of the State of Illinois. The defendant is the School Board of School District # 205 of the Winnebago County Schools, State of Illinois.

The instant suit is a class action, brought by the plaintiffs (qua individual taxpayers and voluntary associations) on behalf of other residents and taxpayers similarly situated in School District # 205 of Winnebago County, State of Illinois ("School District"), pursuant to Rule 23(a) and 23(b)(2), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The class represented by the named plaintiffs allegedly consists of all residents of the School District including both black and white citizens.¹

The named plaintiffs, in their complaint, have set forth the following eight separate causes of action and factual allegations to support them:

1. The School District is Not in Compliance With the State's Rules on Equal Educational Opportunities.

The defendant School District has failed to comply with the "Rules Establishing Requirements and Procedures for the Elimination and Prevention of Racial Segregation in Schools" issued on November 22, 1971 by Michael J. Bakalis, Superintendent of Public Instruction, State of Illinois.² The defendant School Board has received a statement of non compliance from the Illinois Superintendent of Public Instruction and has not complied with the said notice, as required by the directive, to achieve quality integrated education in Rockford free of illegal segregated educational practices. The defendant School Board adopted a "Voluntary Desegragation Plan" on April 30, 1973 which does not comply with the Rules set forth in the Superintendent of Public Instruction's directive of November 22, 1971. The School Board's plan allegedly does not set forth time tables, places unequal burdens of transfer and the like upon minority students and relies upon voluntary integration plans which have been shown not to work thus assuring the continuance of segregation practices in violation of the constitution and statutes of the United States.

2. School Board Practices and Election Procedure Violate State Laws.

The manner of election of individuals to the School Board is racially discriminatory, for the election of School Board members, pursuant to Sec. 9-7 of Chapter 122 of the Illinois Revised Statutes of 1971, allowing candidates to be chosen from the entire district assures an all-white school board or a segregation-oriented school board to be elected. In the fact of existing racial and economic residential segregation in the Rockford School District, every school board election assures the election of a majority of board members unresponsive to the needs of minority students and the overriding urgency to achieve quality integrated education.

3. Present Attendance Boundaries Create Racial Imbalance.

The present attendance boundaries for assigning students to the five senior high schools, the six junior high schools, and the 60 elementary schools of the Rockford School District produce a racial imbalance or segregation in the student bodies throughout the system. The boundaries have caused students who are black to go to schools with a larger percentage of black students than the overall citywide average of 15 percent, although another school nearer to such students would have offered a better proportional racial balance. The present attendance boundaries produce a level of racial segregation resulting in unequal educational opportunities for many children, black and white. The present attendance boundaries cause an increase in the racial identifiability of various schools.

4. Present Attendance Boundaries Create Imbalance of Under Achievers.

The present system of attendance boundaries has caused students who are at low achievement levels to be attending schools where there are larger numbers of low achiever students than the citywide average, although a school with a low percentage of low achievement level students is nearer at hand. The present attendance boundaries produce a racial and achievement level segregation, resulting in unequal educational opportunities for many children, black and white. The present attendance boundaries cause an increase in the racial identifiability of various schools and an increase in low achieving or economic identifiability of various schools.

5. Bussing of Students In Discriminatory Manner.

The bussing of students within the Rockford School District is performed in a racially discriminatory manner. Black children are bussed out of predominantly black areas but white students are not bussed in the same manner. Bussing is actually done within the Rockford School District to continue segregation rather than to produce integration. Further, children are bussed in order to produce clusters of students of the same achievement level rather than to integrate students of all achievement levels. The Rockford School Board has sought to use its neighborhood school policy and its policy against forced cross-the-river bussing to explain its failure to integrate students, teachers and staff members. The Rockford School Board currently has a plan of bussing in which primarily black students are bussed, and this produces more racial identifiability and racial segregation.

6. Racial Discrimination in Faculty Assignments.

There is racial imbalance or segregation in the faculty assignments in the senior high schools, junior high schools, and elementary schools of the Rockford School District on a racially segregated basis, namely, a greater proportion of black faculty members are in those schools that have a greater proportion of black students.

7. Racial Discrimination in the Construction Program.

There is racial imbalance or segregation in the construction program of the senior high schools, the junior high schools and the elementary schools of the Rockford School District. Schools housing a greater proportion of black students than the citywide average are those schools which should have been removed because of their age, but were remodeled, thus perpetuating the imbalance. New schools were built in the center of all-white areas and not on the borders of white-black areas, where more racial balance might have been achieved. Portable schoolrooms were purchased and/or transferred to schools with a view toward maintaining racial imbalance or imbalance of low-achievers rather than coupled with alteration of attendance boundaries to permit a more balanced student body, both racially and in terms of achievement levels. A $17 million dollar bond issue in 1967 was promoted with representations to the public that the monies would be used to build better schools on both sides of the river running through Rockford, but the facts have shown that most of the monies were used in white areas for high achieving students.

8. Curriculum Programs are Racially Discriminating.

There is a racial imbalance or segregation in educational opportunities produced by the curriculum programs in the elementary schools, junior high schools and senior high schools of the Rockford School District. In Guilford High School nothing has been offered by way of a black studies course. In Wilson, Lincoln and Roosevelt Junior High Schools there is no separate program of black studies offered at the schools, and in the other schools where black studies are offered, all students are not required to take such studies. At Auburn High School, where a predominant number of the students are black, students in this school (in contrast to the other high schools of the city) are denied the right to take SAT College Entrance tests. More than twice as much money is spent on counseling facilities for the students in high schools which have a practically all-white population than in other high schools where there is a large percentage of black students. In Wert High School a black studies course was offered for the first time last year, but there are no plans to increase the number of courses this coming year.

The plaintiffs have asked this Court to restrain the defendants from proceeding with their Voluntary Desegregation Plan; to require the defendant School Board to re-examine its School Board election procedure and practices in light of Illinois Constitutional requirements; to enjoin the defendants, their agents, officers, employees, successors and all persons in active consort or participation with them from discriminating on the basis of race, color or achievement level regarding attendance boundaries, bussing, faculty assignment, school construction programs or curriculum in the operation of the Rockford Public School System.

It is important for the proper disposition of the instant controversy to comprehend the defendant's Voluntary Desegregation Plan, which provides:³

1. The entire staff, certificated and non-certificated, should be integrated

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