Opinion ID: 1891380
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Racial Impact

Text: The Englewood City Board of Education (Englewood) contends that the Act on its face, and as applied, is flawed because the Commissioner is not required to and, in practice, does not assess the effect on racial balance that a charter school may have on a public school district from which it draws its pupils. [2] Englewoodasks the Court to require the Commissioner to perform a study of the potential racial imbalancing effects of a charter school on a district of residence before the Commissioner approves a charter school application. [3] Rooted in our Constitution, New Jersey's public policy prohibits segregation in our public schools: The history and vigor of our State's policy in favor of a thorough and efficient public school system are matched in its policy against racial discrimination and segregation in the public schools. Since 1881 there has been explicit legislation declaring it unlawful to exclude a child from any public school because of his race ( L. 1881, c. 149; N.J.S.A. 18A:38-5.1), and indirect as well as direct efforts to circumvent the legislation have been stricken judicially. In 1947, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention took pains to provide, not only in general terms that no person shall be denied any civil right, but also in specific terms that no person shall be segregated in the public schools because of his religious principles, race, color, ancestry or national origin. Art. 1, para. 5. [ Jenkins v. Township of Morris Sch. Dist. and Bd. of Educ., 58 N.J. 483, 495-496, 279 A. 2d 619 (1971) (citations omitted).] New Jersey's abhorrence of discrimination and segregation in the public schools is not tempered by the cause of the segregation. Whether due to an official action, or simply segregation in fact, our public policy applies with equal force against the continuation of segregation in our schools. Booker v. Board of Educ., Plainfield, 45 N.J. 161, 212 A. 2d 1 (1965). We have exhorted the Commissioner to exercise broadly his statutory powers when confronting segregation, whatever the cause. Jenkins, supra, 58 N.J. at 506-07, 279 A. 2d 619. Responsive to that obligation, the Commissioner has required school districts to monitor racial balance in the public schools. Districts are provided with guidelines to assist them in the review of their schools' pupil populations so they may be vigilant in preventing segregation from occurring and promptly correcting it if it does occur. New Jersey State Guidelines on the Desegregation and Integration of Public Schools ( Guidelines ). The Guidelines provide a step-by-step methodology for a school district to use in establishing the ratio between the district's overall pupil population percentages for its racial groups and the population percentages for the same pupil groups for each grade organization level, i.e., elementary, middle, junior high or high school. Once established, all schools within each grade organization level are compared to the expected pupil percentages, allowing for a reasonable deviation. Use of those Guidelines provides early warning to school district officials if a school within a particular organizational level, for example an elementary school, begins to have a pupil population that is substantially out of line with that of the other elementary schools in the district. Administrative steps, including but not limited to adjustments in school assignments or instructional clustering of pupils, are then possible to keep the school populations within expected ranges or to otherwise achieve in the students' learning environment appropriate mixtures of pupil populations that reflect the community's pertinent school age population. The school-to-school comparisons thus promote learning environments in which students are educated among a mix of children that is reflective of the overall district composition for that organizational level. With charter schools, the Legislature sought to achieve a comparable result. Balancing the desire to prevent discrimination on the basis of race in admission policies with a concomitant desire to prevent racial segregation in the charter school, the Act provides: The admission policy of the charter school shall, to the maximum extent practicable, seek the enrollment of a cross section of the community's school age population, including racial and academic factors.