Opinion ID: 201292
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Lynn Public Schools

Text: Lynn is the ninth-largest city in Massachusetts, with a population of approximately 89,000. At all relevant times, its school system has been neighborhood-centered, entitling students to attend their local schools as a matter of right. By the mid-1970s, several of Lynn's schools were experiencing significant racial imbalance. In 1977, for example, the Washington Community Elementary School had a nonwhite student population of 57%, more than six times the nonwhite percentage in the school system as a whole. Predominantly nonwhite schools suffered disproportionately from resource shortages, overcrowding, discipline problems, and teacher apathy. The school system was plagued by high absentee rates, racial tension, and low test scores. In an effort to combat these problems, Lynn established its first magnet school in 1979. At the same time, it inaugurated a voluntary transfer program aimed at attracting white students to that school (which apparently was located in a predominantly nonwhite area of the city). The magnet school was only modestly successful in alleviating racial imbalance. In the meantime, Lynn was undergoing a demographic shift. Between 1980 and 2000, the city went from being 93% white to 63% white, with the school-age population becoming more than half nonwhite by 2000. Residential segregation by race increased during -5- this period as whites clustered in the northern and western areas of Lynn and nonwhites concentrated in its south-central region. Because of the neighborhood school system, these residential patterns heightened the racial imbalance of Lynn's schools. By 1987, seven of eighteen elementary schools had white enrollments of 90% or more, while four others had predominantly nonwhite student bodies. Lynn responded by developing a plan to launch ten magnet schools,1 but city leaders did not believe that the magnet program, on its own, would effectively combat the growing racial imbalance. In September 1989, the Lynn School Committee (Lynn) adopted the Plan that is the subject of this litigation.2