White students for first time minority in schools

FILE PHOTO

Did you know that for the first time since such records were kept, fewer than half of the students who attend the traditional public schools here are white?

In a county where three-quarters of the population is white, it was more than a little surprising to learn that minorities have become the majority of the 14,857 students currently enrolled in our traditional public schools.

According to the most recent data, provided by School Superintendent David Moore last week, non-Hispanic white students make up only 49.4 percent of the district’s enrollment.

The next largest racial/ethnic groups are Hispanic students, who compose 25.2 percent (up from 23 percent last year), and Black students, who represent 19 percent (up from 17 percent).
Students of other racial/ethnic groups account for 4.9 percent, followed by Asian students, who make up 1.3 percent.

“I thought we were still three or four years away from becoming a minority majority district,” Moore said, “but we’ve had nearly a 5 percent swing over the last two years.”

That doesn’t include the overwhelmingly white student enrollments at four of the county’s five charter schools, which are publicly funded but operate independently of the district and are exempt from some of the state requirements that govern other public schools.

Of the 2,371 students who attend the county’s charter schools, district records show that 73.5 percent of them are white. Only 13 percent are Hispanic and 8.7 percent are Black.

Those numbers reveal a problem in a county that 2021 Census estimates show is 75 percent white, 12.7 percent Hispanic and 9.6 percent Black.

The Black student enrollments at three of the five local charters – Indian River Charter High School (4.5), Imagine Schools at South Vero (5.4) and Sebastian Charter Junior High School (6.7) – are currently below the percentage required by the 2018 Joint Plan approved by the School Board to bring the district in compliance with a 1967 federal court desegregation order.

The order requires the charter schools to have a Black student enrollment within 9 percent of the district’s black-student enrollment, which is currently 19 percent.

As the academic year comes to a close, North County Charter School (10.4 percent) in the Winter Beach area and St. Peter’s Academy (54.7 percent) in Gifford are the only local charter schools where Black student enrollment is in compliance with the Joint Plan.

Will there be consequences for the others?

“That’s up to the federal court,” Moore said.

In the meantime, it’s fair to wonder how the demographic change might impact the way the school district approaches educating our children.

And the simple answer is: It won’t.

“Our mission doesn’t change,” School Board Vice Chair Peggy Jones said. “As a public school system, you take whoever shows up at your door and guide them to where they need to go, regardless of race or ethnicity.”

True, there are more Hispanic children in district classrooms now, but Jones said more of those students speak English proficiently.

School Board member Mara Schiff said the district should embrace the change as an opportunity to make our schools more welcoming to minorities.

“It’s not merely an invitation for us to do and be better,” Schiff said, “it’s an invitation for us to be sensitive to the needs of families whose experiences might not resemble ours.”

Board member Brian Barefoot said the change in the makeup of the student enrollment should lead to even greater emphasis on the district’s efforts to recruit minority teachers.

Currently, he said, 13 percent of the district’s teachers are Black, an increase of 9 percent over the past year.

“In a perfect world, you’d like the percentage of Black teachers to reflect the percentage of Black students,” Barefoot said.

“But who wants to be a teacher these days, when you’re being accused of indoctrinating and grooming and teaching critical race theory?

“What’s happening to teachers is very unfair,” he added. “The way public education has been politicized – the lack of respect shown to teachers these days, regardless of race – makes the profession a lot less appealing.

“Unless something changes, you’re going to see more and more teachers leaving to do something else.”

Unfortunately, a small-but-vocal fringe group claiming to advocate for parental rights continues to wage a culture war that began with opposing mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic and now targets what it considers inappropriate and illegal books in school libraries.

Locally, the group’s members have deluded themselves into believing they speak for a majority of the parents who have children attending the county’s public schools.

Clearly, though, they don’t.

“That’s an understatement,” Barefoot said. “I don’t think it’s even close. But they show up at our meetings and suck all the air out of the room.”

They’re doing so at a critical juncture. While the county continues to grow – the population now exceeds 160,000 – Moore said the district’s student enrollment is declining.

He attributes this dichotomy to the influx of retirees, empty nesters and others who don’t have children in our public schools.

“It’s an odd trend,” Moore said.

So is this: The Census tells us most of the county’s newcomers are white, but school district records show that more of the students attending our traditional public schools are minorities.

The current enrollment at Vero Beach High School, for example, is 51.1 percent white, 21 percent Black and 21.7 percent Hispanic.

At Sebastian River High School, 49.4 percent of the students are white, 11.9 percent are Black and 34.2 percent are Hispanic.

And while Beachland Elementary School’s enrollment is 60.3 percent white, 13.7 percent Black and 21.1 percent Hispanic, Gifford Middle School students are a more-diverse 38.4 percent white, 37.5 percent Black and 22.9 percent Hispanic.

For those wondering: Moore said the number of local students choosing to attend private schools on Florida Department of Education-sanctioned scholarships has “skyrocketed” from 81 last year to 368 this year.

“I don’t know where they’re going,” Moore said, “but it’s happening all over the state.”

Whatever the reason, the public-school landscape in this county is changing – mostly for the better – in spite of the sometimes-costly distractions concocted by the parents group.

“I make sure to listen to every person who speaks to me about our schools, not just the ones who show up at board meetings,” Jones said. “The more we can focus on educating kids and improving student outcomes, the better for everyone.”

Comments are closed.