Opinion ID: 435100
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: School Siting and Transportation.

Text: 38 Despite the Board's awareness of the problem of ethnic imbalance and its duty to alleviate it, the Board chose alternatives that perpetuated or intensified segregation and rejected numerous unusual opportunities to reduce segregation that became available throughout the years. 39 Since 1965, the district has constructed nine new schools on newly-selected sites. 8 The Board was aware that state law required it to consider state guidelines on the formation of attendance areas in making siting decisions. Nonetheless, the Board failed to consider the state guidelines 9 and selected sites with the knowledge that each of the newly constructed schools would be imbalanced from inception, although alternatives existed. Throughout the relevant time period, the Board received a number of communications from state agencies, advising it that district schools were impermissibly segregated and insisting that it follow state guidelines. The Board chose to disregard state law totally. 40 The Board similarly chose to maintain ethnic imbalance when it closed several northern schools. The district court went through an extensive and careful analysis of the pattern of school closures. See Diaz I, 412 F.Supp. at 319-22, 331-32; Diaz III, 518 F.Supp. at 632-35. The conclusion from this analysis can be summarized easily--little change occurred. Plaintiffs aptly refer to these actions as the downtown shuffle. Where northern schools were closed, the Board reassigned students to other schools in the north rather than reassigning them to schools further south as suggested by numerous proposals. The district court noted two particularly disturbing aspects of the decision to close two downtown junior high schools. First, the restructuring of junior high school attendance areas resulted in two distinct feeder systems, one for the area that was predominantly Hispanic and another for the area that was predominantly Anglo. Second, the transfer of students transformed one of the district's few ethnically balanced schools into an imbalanced school. See Diaz III, 518 F.Supp. at 634. 41 Pursuant to the Field Act, 10 the Board demolished thirteen additional schools as unsafe. The Board created a task group to establish a plan for rebuilding the schools. The task group considered several proposals to rebuild the schools in new locations and to redraw attendance areas in order to reduce ethnic imbalance. The district court found that several of the alternatives would have reduced ethnic imbalance. Diaz I, 412 F.Supp. at 331. The Board chose to rebuild most of the Field Act schools on their original sites and to maintain the former attendance areas. 11 The Board rebuilt two Field Act schools on newly selected sites. However, it retained the old attendance area boundaries, and both schools remained imbalanced. 42 During this time the Board considered, and rejected, a proposal to transfer students from the most severely imbalanced Field Act schools to nearby schools in contiguous attendance areas. Washington School had a student population of 78.4% Spanish-surnamed. Because of overcrowding, Washington students attended double sessions. One mile from Washington, Riverglen School had a Spanish-surnamed population of only 19.2% and was operating under capacity. The Board refused to redraw attendance areas or to transfer any students from the overcrowded Washington to Riverglen. Students from the Little Orchard neighborhood, which is almost 100% Spanish-surnamed, were assigned for years to Washington even though they actually lived closer to Riverglen. 43 Gardner School had a Spanish-surnamed population of 87.8%. Lincoln Glen, located two miles from Gardner, had a Spanish-surnamed population of 15% and was operating under capacity. Canoas School, located three or four miles from Gardner, had a Spanish-surnamed population of 9.7% and was operating under capacity. The Board never considered transferring students from Gardner to Canoas or to Lincoln Glen. 44 Despite strong opposition to the rebuilding of Washington and Gardner in their original locations and the presentation of feasible options to decrease segregation, the Board rebuilt them in their original locations and retained the same attendance areas. These actions were taken by the Board in the face of assurances to the State that the Board would use the opportunity presented by the rebuilding of the schools to reduce ethnic imbalance. 45 School District Superintendent Knight justified the rebuilding of the Field Act schools on the same sites on the ground that it would not get in the way of a two-way exchange of students. This justification must be viewed with suspicion in light of the Board's repeated and vocal opposition to busing to achieve integration. The district court found that [a]s early as 1963, the board, through resolution, assured the community of its opposition to busing for integration; the board has not deviated from this position. Id. at 324. The Board proclaimed that it would rebuild on the same sites in order to bus more effectively, while at the same time pronouncing it would never bus because it was seeking other solutions to the segregation problem. 46 The Board's wide use of busing for everything except integration is itself suspect. In 1973-74, 10,431 of 36,000 students were bused daily. All but 14 of the district's 50 schools used buses to transport students within designated attendance areas. Studies commissioned by the district showed that the total busing required to integrate the district would involve only 6,000 students--3,000 Hispanic students and 3,000 Anglo students. The Board was clearly not opposed to busing per se, yet it repeatedly voiced its opposition to busing for the purposes of integration. The Board's use of buses for every purpose but integration, coupled with its intransigent resistance to the use of buses for integration, supports an inference of segregative intent. Cf. Washington v. Seattle School District No. 1, 458 U.S. 457, 102 S.Ct. 3187, 73 L.Ed.2d 896 (1982) (initiative that treated busing for integration differently from busing for other purposes invalid). 47 In summary, the Board responded to a series of opportunities to select school locations and designate the boundaries of attendance areas by selecting sites and designating boundaries in a manner that ensured continued segregation. In ascertaining the existence of legally imposed school segregation, the existence of a pattern of school construction and abandonment is ... a factor of great weight. Swann, 402 U.S. at 21, 91 S.Ct. at 1278-79. See also Dayton, 443 U.S. at 540, 99 S.Ct. at 2980. The Board responded to suggestions for less segregative alternatives by rejecting them. It responded to the guidelines imposed by the State of California by ignoring them. 48