Bus Pact

St. Louis desegregates

Like Boston, St. Louis was slapped with a school-desegregation suit in 1972. But unlike Boston, where Judge Garrity forced busing two years later, St. Louis was not compelled to adopt a mandatory busing plan for some 7,000 of its 59,000 students until 1980. By then, after a decade of white flight to the suburbs, the school system had become nearly 80% black, making it impossible to achieve racial balance in the classrooms. The St. Louis school board charged that the transfer and consolidation policies of suburban St. Louis County schools, 80% of whose students were white, had helped reinforce city segregation patterns. Federal Court Judge William Hungate threatened to impose mandatory metropolitan busing unless suitable voluntary arrangements were made. Last week, after eight days and 60 hours of intense negotiations, 22 out of 23 county school districts agreed to a unique voluntary desegregation program that will bus about 15,000 black students from city to suburban schools. Says James DeClue, president of the St. Louis chapter of the N.A.A.C.P.: "It's a historic accomplishment. It's quite unlike anything that has happened in the history of school-desegregation cases."

Many of the county school districts supported an experimental program last year that permitted the busing of 1,000 black students into their schools. As a result, they have mechanisms already in place to execute the new agreement. "It's a damned sight better solution than a mandated plan," says William Bliss, a Pattonville school district board member. The plan is palatable to many because it will involve only student volunteers. It is expected to go into effect for the 1983-84 school year and sets a goal of 25% black enrollment (and a minimum of 15%) in the county school districts, which now have some 200,000 students. The city of St. Louis, for its part, hopes to attract white, suburban students to special magnet schools that offer advanced courses or such special programs as performing arts and naval ROTC. Currently about 7,100 students, including 450 from the county, attend the 19 St. Louis magnet schools. Few racial problems have accompanied the transfers.

The cost of the new voluntary plan and the creation of more magnet schools will be financed partly by the state of Missouri. It is already paying $20 million a year to the city and county of St. Louis to help defray such expenses as busing in the current limited desegregation program. Hungate may order a new school tax to help finance last week's agreement, a measure that is sure to prove unpopular with both politicians and residents. But in the final analysis, court-ordered busing would have been the most unpopular alternative of all. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.