Print this story | E-mail story | This story has 11 comments Add your own | iPod friendly
Bertie gains Unitary Status
Published Tuesday, September 1, 2009
RALEIGH – After 42 years, decisions are back in the hands of the elected school board and the voting public in Bertie County.
Late last week, the United States District Court entered an order for full Unitary Status for the Bertie County Board of Education. The order ended 42 years in which the school district was forced to answer to the U.S. Department of Justice on all matters and returned the reins of the district back to its elected leaders.
“Over the last 42 years, neither the school board nor the electorate has governed schools in Bertie County,” said Bertie County Schools Superintendent Dr. Chip Zullinger. “They have been governed by the federal government. What this does is return that power back to the school board and the voting public. That’s important.”
In a decision handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Terrence W. Boyle, the court found that Bertie County has “(1) fully and satisfactorily complied with the Court’s desegregation orders for a reasonable period of time; (2) eliminated the vestiges of its past de jure discrimination to the extent practicable; and (3) demonstrated a good faith commitment to the whole of the Court’s orders and to those provisions of the law and the Constitution which were predicate for judicial intervention in the first instance…”
The order of full Unitary Status comes three years after the Court entered a Consent Order and Declaration of Partial Unitary Status in 2006. Under that order, the county had complied with most of the previous concerns of the Court. They included the areas of transportation, extra-curricular activities, faculty assignment and staff assignment.
The only two areas of concern left for the district were school facilities and student assignment.
The facility issue was settled at the end of the 2006-2006 academic year when the school district closed Askewville Elementary School and Merry Hill’s J.P. Law Elementary School. Those two schools were areas of concern by the Department of Justice. Askewville was because it was identified as a historically white school based on the composition of its student body and J.P. Law because of being identified as a historically black school based on the state of its facility.
The resulting redrawing of attendance lines also helped the district achieve full Unitary Status.
According to the court order, “The United States and the Bertie County Board of Education are in agreement that the closure of J.P. Law and Askewville Elementary Schools and the subsequent adjustments to the school attendance zones have eliminated racially identifiable elementary schools within the Bertie County Public Schools.”
The order went on to say that during the 2008-09 school year, Aulander Elementary had a population that was 87.5 percent black, Colerain was 81.1 percent black, West Bertie was 87.2 percent black and Windsor was 83.2 percent black. The highest white population was in Colerain (15.5 percent) and Windsor (13 percent).
The other area of concern was student assignment where Board Attorney Carolyn Waller said principals in the district sometimes clustered white students with “what may have been good intentions” but left classrooms that were all black which is unconstitutional.
To change that, principals were directed to no longer take race into account in any student assignment. Once that was achieved, the problem was alleviated.
There are a number of immediate impacts the ruling has on the Bertie County Board of Education, according to Dr. Zullinger and Waller.
In addition to the district being totally governed locally, the school system will also no longer be required to present an annual report to the U.S. Department of Justice and will be exempt from the legal fees that have mounted by having to make the report and other various activities required by the order.
Another major change will be the affect of race in decision-making by the school district officials and governing body.
“Before, every decision made had to be done so with the issue of race being taken into account,” Waller said. “Now that the system has received Unitary Status, they can no longer take race into account in any decision that is made. Race cannot be a factor because that would be illegal.”
Bertie County operated two school systems for a decade after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1954 in the Brown vs. Board of Education case that segregating students by race was unconstitutional.
The U.S. Justice Department went to court in 1967 to dissolve the classroom race barrier, a federal judge agreed the following year, and in 1969 the school board adopted a plan bringing students of both races into common buildings.
In 2001, the Department of Justice came back into the district’s operation because of the situation that existed at Askewville and J.P. Law.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE THIS STORY?
Comments
Posted by bertiehomeguard (anonymous) on September 2, 2009 at 11:26 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Ms. Waller, who by the way has made a killing for Roger Smith's law firm over all this nonsense - compliments of the bertie tax payer, should spend a little time at windsor elementary and see if race is "taken into account" there when decisions are made to divide the only white kids they have in a particular grade (4 or 5 at the most) into three different class rooms - insuring overwhelming black majority in every class.
Now tell me again why we shut down Askewville?
Posted by myopinion (anonymous) on September 7, 2009 at 11:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
This is only the beginning..Bertie is still racially divided in more ways than just in the school system..I as visiting there this weekend and noticed that the whites are still able to hang out in their spots and the blacks are still being run away....It's time that both sides learn to accept that we all still bleed the same red blood...
Posted by bertiehomeguard (anonymous) on September 8, 2009 at 8:57 a.m. (Suggest removal)
My Opinion, what areas are you referring to? If you are going to join the pro-black politically correct band wagon and throw a grenade at the white community be specific in your charge. I live in Bertie and would like to know what where and when you are talking about. Its funny because I always see the complete opposite.
Posted by myopinion (anonymous) on September 8, 2009 at 3:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
what, when and where is not important...what's important is that i'm not on the band wagon with either side...I am completly neutral as I think all people regardless of the color of their skin or social status should be able to go freely and enjoy themselves as long as it's not harming anyone or anything...what I do know is that when I come to that area, I don't like going out after dark because i don't know if I'll be hung in a tree by a racist white person or shot down in the street because my vehicle was mistaken for someone else by some wanna be thug.... who still lives with their parents because they don't want a real job and choose to sell drugs for a living...check this out...if you feel like I do that there is a line between the races...change it!!!! I don't live there, but my family does and if I could pack them up and move them out of that area I would...because of the racism that's there from both sides.....there are just as many racist blacks as there are whites..and mixing the school system up so that people can learn about each other's culture is only the start..now we need to get the police and the rest of the community to act as if everyone is equal......i never realized how much that area was divided until i left and my eyes were opened to it...i thought it was the way of life...WRONG!!!
Posted by bertiehomeguard (anonymous) on September 9, 2009 at 9:31 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The most honest thing you said that made any sense is that there are racist blacks. You needn't be afraid of being hung by a racist white. That hasn't happened here in over 60 years if not longer. However, your fears of being shot at by a young black male thug are warranted, realistic, and shared. That is happening around here and eastern north carolina on a daily basis. Move your parents to greenville and see how safe they are there.
If you can't provide any examples of racial crime here other than black on white, then quit your Black Supremacist unsubstantiated anti-white racist rants about an area you don't even live in.
Posted by myopinion (anonymous) on September 9, 2009 at 11:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Trust me i have many examples...as for the record I was born and raise in Bertie County...so I am well aware of what goes on there...I keep in touch with all my family and you should know that I can speak on whatever I choose to speak on..I don't owe you any explanation....just like you don't owe me one...It's my opinion just like it is yours....so you need to check your tone and be mindful that others will have opinions just like you do and if you don't like it..then stop reading the paper!!!! I don't have a problem with constructive criticizim...I don't have a problem with any race and the name calling is WAY out of line...if i were to return the same to you, you wouldn't like it...sounds like you are the one with the problem, not me!!!!!!!!!! I don't like ignorance regardless of the race!!!!!! I think your initial comment was very bias..but that's okay because only you can make a comment about this and no one else....I was responding to the article not you!!!!!!!!!!!!! So make sure next time you remember that a comment is not toward you...it's my opinion and i will make one everytime I feel like it....This is the reason i don't deal with ignorance because of people like you...so my final comment to you is help stop the racial problem in that area if you even live there....I choose to leave because i know that there was a better opportunity for me elsewhere..if you choose to stay then that's your choice....Where I live is not free of racism, but at least my white neighbor on my right, who's from a racist part of the country treat me like a human being and has no issue wtih me...and my black neighbor on my left from a very high crime area...takes care of his family his home and oh yeah...all our homes if we need his assistance....That's what black and whites do to get along..they don't contribute to the problem...and oh yeah me in the middle...I treat them all with respect not because of the color of their skin..but because of they type of people they are....I'm done talking to you because you obviously have some issues that you need to deal with!!!!!!! Have a wonderful day!
Posted by blackpearl (anonymous) on September 10, 2009 at 10:38 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Home grown I am very offended by you stating that everyone share in thinking about being shout down by a black male thug, Every one want to eye the black male when they should be eyeing the white child predators, high rolling officials who have those black male thugs selling dope for them, they should be eyeing those racist cops who only target blacks, and the list could go on and on. Racist you are one, just because there haven't been hangings here as a African American we are still been targeted and ridiculed, prejudged, and discriminated, we are been hanged with the prejudice society that we live in.
Posted by bertiehomeguard (anonymous) on September 10, 2009 at 12:42 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Ah Yes the "it is all whitey's fault" catch all excuse. It took just a little bit longer than I had expected but it no doubt came flying out just as I knew it would!! YES!! Thank you for being so predictable and proving my point, "Myopinion" and "Blackpearl".
Posted by myopinion (anonymous) on September 10, 2009 at 7:45 p.m. (Suggest removal)
This is the very reason why I don't live there anymore and never will live there again!!! PURE IGNORANCE is still running rampant in Bertie!!!!!!! I guess some things will never change...LOL
Posted by blackpearl (anonymous) on September 11, 2009 at 8:28 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Ignorance lives everywhere as well as a racist. In 2009 we are still battling with racism, this country will never be One Nation Under God until people begin to change there mind set. What point was you trying to make that only African American commit crimes, that we are only scared of black male thugs, whats your point, to be honest you where calling my race out so I thought it would be only right to highlight some of the crimes commited by whites.I HAVE NO EXCUSES FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS, in life we all have choices some of us as you know make the wrong ones, my problem is when we make the wrong choice the first time don't continue to do it. Rather black or white, latino, etc we all bleed the same as well as we all came from the dusk. I t took one ignorant person to start the chain of racism, WELL WHEN IS ONE INTELLIGENT PERSON GOING TO STAND UP AND BREAK THE CHAIN FOREVER (MANY GREAT MEN AND WOMEN HAVE TRIED I SURE BE GLAD WHEN ONE SUCCEED).
Posted by bertiehomeguard (anonymous) on September 11, 2009 at 10:33 a.m. (Suggest removal)
My Opinion, don't call others ignorant. It discredits your points and reveals your own insecurities about ignorance when you so hypocritically criticize and verbally abuse someone who happens to dare disagree with you or better yet finally checks your anti-white rhetoric that you've gotten by with for so long. You seem to be intelligent, less your white hanging blacks in Bertie remarks, so quit selling yourself short with baseless insults and racial accusations. They probably work in whatever utopian, racist free, color blind town you live in, but they don't fly here in "mean old backwards Bertie". "LOL!" as you so say.
Blackpearl, my point was not that all blacks commit crimes, but you so predictably took it that way when you have no other defense against statistical facts that clearly validates my original advice to Myopinion as to what she or he should actually be afraid of when the sun goes down around here. Don't blame whites for this. Blame the m.i.a. fathers of these vulnerable young black males and blame the black dominated rap industry that preys and more absurdly profits on them by glorifying and promoting such violent gangsta behavior. Talk about a double standard. My kid had never heard the infamous "N" word until walking with me in the foodlion parking lot in windsor one day when some young black kids in a car drove by with the windows down blaring some god awful rap song on the car stereo with this word being shouted in the "song" every other lyric- not to mention the "b" word following it. Come on people is this really a white problem? Seriously now.
Don't be a hypocrite and be offended by this if you can so easly generalize whites as child predators.
Go to http://sexoffender.ncdoj.gov and rethink your baseless claim. Talk about racist.
You are right about one thing though, Blackpearl. We will never be one nation under God with separatists such as yourself putting the word African in front of American. We are all just Americans - just plain Americans warts and all.
Post a comment (Terms of Use Policy)
(Requires free registration.)