Opinion ID: 2077743
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Relationship between the Districts

Text: In October 1965, Cliffs and Englewood executed a 10-year sending-receiving contract to begin in 1967. The agreement essentially obligated Cliffs to send its public high school students to DMHS and required that Englewood maintain DMHS' accreditation and confer with Cliffs on matters of mutual concern to the High School program. Cliffs was obligated to pay Englewood for the cost of educating its students. Every year between 1970 and 1976 Cliffs sent approximately 60.0% of its graduating eighth graders, or approximately 60 to 70 students, to DMHS. The remaining Cliffs' eighth graders chose to attend private schools. During these years, the total number of Cliffs' students attending DMHS averaged approximately 245 per year. During the middle 1970s, however, Cliffs became dissatisfied with the sending-receiving relationship. In 1977, rather than renew the relationship and because applicable law made terminations of such relationships subject to the Commissioner's approval, Cliffs petitioned the Commissioner to sever the relationship so that it could explore the establishment of sending-receiving relationships with other districts. Englewood opposed the severance. Cliffs eventually withdrew its petition, apparently because it was unable to support its allegation that DMHS was not providing a good education. .... In the late 1970s, newspaper articles emphasizing the negative aspects of DMHS began to appear. These newspaper accounts contributed to the growing public perception that DMHS had serious problems and to the declining enrollment of Cliffs' students at DMHS. During this period, the question of severance became a political issue; at one point all of the candidates for Cliffs' school board were in favor of severance, and the slate most committed to severance ultimately prevailed in the 1985 election. Between 1974 and 1982, Cliffs affirmatively encouraged its high school-aged students to attend DMHS. For example, during 1980-1981, cottage parties were held between Cliffs and Englewood, at which board members and teachers from DMHS were available to answer questions about the school; however, the program ceased after one year, and by 1982 Cliffs stopped encouraging its students to attend DMHS altogether. Before 1982, THS was the receiving school for students from Alpine, a wealthy community on Tenafly's northeastern border. Around 1982, Tenafly's superintendent reported to Tenafly that, in an informal discussion with Dr. Harold France, Superintendent of Cliffs' schools from 1973 to 1986, Dr. France had said that it would be most interesting if and when Tenafly decided to admit non-resident students on a tuition basis, i.e., admission based on individual tuition agreements with parents outside the district as opposed to a sending-receiving agreement with another district. In 1982-1983, Tenafly instituted a program to admit non-resident students to its public schools, including THS, on a tuition basis. When the program was adopted by Tenafly, Cliffs began providing, upon request, written instructions to the parents of Cliffs' students as to how to apply to THS for admission on a tuition basis, although it did not provide such instructions for any other school. By 1983-1984 Cliffs had amassed grievances against DMHS as follows: declining attendance of Cliffs' students at DMHS; the belief that DMHS was no longer an effective school; Englewood's plan to begin sending its eighth graders to DMHS, thereby further alienating Cliffs' DMHS students (because they would be at DMHS one year less than Englewood's students); and Englewood's failure to have discussed with Cliffs, in advance, the policy of sending eighth graders to DMHS. In November 1985, Cliffs voted to enter into a sending-receiving relationship with Tenafly; Tenafly reciprocated. Until such time as Cliffs' sending-receiving relationship with Englewood was terminated, however, the THS policy was to accept Cliffs' and other municipalities' students on a tuition basis. The primary factors which THS considered under its private admission program were the academic, disciplinary and attendance records of the applicants. Tuition for 1987-1988 was approximately $5,480. From the inception of the THS private tuition program through 1986, 59.3% of its private students came from Cliffs and 22.9% from Englewood. In 1986, 76 students came from Cliffs and 16 from Englewood. D. Racial Composition and Enrollment Trends at DMHS and THS In general, public school enrollment was down in all three districts and this trend seemed likely to continue. Since 1977, enrollment of Cliffs' students at DMHS dropped dramatically and at a much faster rate than the general decline in the school-aged population. Having averaged approximately 60.0% throughout most of the 1970s, the number of graduating Cliffs' eighth graders attending DMHS fell from a high of 69.0% in 1980-1981 to a low of 4.4% in 1987-1988, or 2.6% of the total DMHS enrollment. In 1982-1983, 1,128 students attended DMHS, of whom only 119 were from Cliffs. In that year the DMHS student body was 31.5% white, 55.5% black, 10.3% Hispanic and 2.7% Asian. In 1987-1988, 799 students made up the DMHS student body, of whom only 21 were from Cliffs. During that year, the racial composition of the DMHS student body had changed to 11.8% white, 66.2% black, 17.8% Hispanic and 3.9% Asian. After Tenafly's non-resident private admission program began in 1982, the number of Cliffs' students attending THS rose annually while the number of Cliffs' students attending DMHS continued to drop. Table 1 sets forth the enrollment trend between 1982 and 1988: TABLE 1 Cliffs Students Cliffs Students School Terms Attending DMHS Attending THS 1982-1983 119 11 1983-1984 92 21 1984-1985 73 33 1985-1986 60 48 1986-1987 35 62 1987-1988 21 76 In addition, following the inception of Tenafly's tuition program, the number of non-resident tuition students from all districts attending THS increased. By 1985-1986, THS had 74 non-resident students, or roughly three times the number of non-resident students enrolled in any other high school district in the State. For example, of the 43 high school districts accepting non-resident students, only 16 had more than five such students. .... Englewood's own students had, increasingly over the years, chosen to go to private schools rather than attend Englewood's public schools. Private school alternatives were readily available in the area, including more than 20 non-public secondary schools. According to Dr. France, the student migration away from public schools begins early (i.e., sixth or seventh grade) as parents desire to reserve a place for their children in the upper grades of selective private schools. E. Causes and Effects of the Migration from DMHS From the time Cliffs made known its intention to form a sending-receiving relationship with THS and terminate its sending-receiving relationship with Englewood, Englewood argued that the issue was not school quality but race. Englewood's experts, Drs. Michelle Fine and Jerry Jacobs, explained that many white parents perceive integrated schools as inferior, and that this perception is a motivating factor in white parents' decisions as to where to send their children to school. Tenafly's expert, Dr. Eugene Smoley, Jr., acknowledged that both the quality and the perceived quality of a school are what substantially motivate parents' selection. Englewood's experts stressed the educational importance of racial diversity in public schools. A white Cliffs' resident, a 1986 graduate of DMHS, described her high school experience and related that as an eighth grader in Cliffs' upper school in 1982, she regularly heard her classmates using terms like Dwight Nigger and Black Morrow to refer to DMHS students. She also described the prevailing Cliffs' misconceptions about DMHS, including fears that female students would be attacked or raped, that students' property would be stolen, and that students would be exposed to rampant drug abuse and unsafe restrooms. On the contrary, she, along with many Cliffs and Englewood parents and students, believed that DMHS was a good, safe school which received wide support for its functions and sports activities from members of both communities. .... Much of the evidence indicated that if Cliffs' parents were prevented from sending their children to THS, they would not send them to DMHS. This was largely due to the common perception in Cliffs as to problems at DMHS and the resulting social pressure on Cliffs' students not to attend DMHS. On the other hand, there was some evidence that certain Cliffs' parents would still enroll their children at DMHS and keep them enrolled there if tuition relationships with THS were enjoined (e.g., in 1988, 3 of 14 Cliffs' eighth graders planning to attend THS said they would attend DMHS if not allowed to go to THS. Out of 25 Cliffs' students who started DMHS in 1982, 23 graduated in 1986).