Boulder – The boys and girls in Heather Knopp’s preschool and kindergarten class fidgeted their way into a circle, then began singing a song in English.
At the end of the song, Knopp went around the circle, speaking to the students one by one: “Buenos días. Cómo estás?” Some of the children shrugged or giggled or shook their heads. Others responded, “Bien!”
And so it went, flitting between Spanish and English, in Knopp’s class at Community Montessori Elementary, where Boulder Valley School District officials two years ago launched a pilot program aimed at improving diversity in the school without using race-based methods.
“It’s just the exposure,” Knopp said of the benefits of classroom diversity. “It’s the availability of this program to anybody, no matter what their background.”
Hundreds of districts across the country – attempting to offset years of racially segregated housing patterns and inequity – have tried to reduce racial divisions in their classrooms.
What sets Community Montessori apart is that the school looks only at economic standing to try to achieve diversification. Just a handful of schools nationwide have similar programs, said Kevin Welner, an associate professor of education at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
But such a strategy would likely get more attention if the U.S. Supreme Court rules against two race-based diversification plans. The cases involve school districts in Seattle and in Louisville, Ky., that offer students a choice of where to go to school but use race as a factor for enrollment when more students apply to a school than there are available slots.
If the Supreme Court says those programs are unconstitutional, that would force about 100 to 300 school districts across the country that consider race as part of their desegregation efforts to find a new strategy, Welner said.
“One obvious alternative that has been discussed has been the use of family wealth in one way or another,” Welner said. “And that brings us back to the Boulder policy because they aren’t using race.”
Five years ago, when Boulder Valley first began studying ways to diversify, district officials were wary of the legal challenges surrounding race-based programs and instead decided to look at socioeconomic factors, said Boulder Valley Deputy Superintendent Chris King.
“We had schools that didn’t reflect the broader community,” King said. “Out of 54 schools, there were a lot of them that were disproportionately one way or the other. As a district, we felt we could take steps to change that.”
So now at Community Montessori, 20 percent of the open spaces each year are held for students eligible for free and reduced-price lunches, a federal measure of poverty. The rest of the spaces are open to all students.
Since there is an overlap between poor students and Latino students in the district, King said, the strategy was a way to both economically and ethnically diversify the school without using race as a factor.
This year, Latino students make up about 15 percent of the 215 children enrolled, compared with 4 percent in the 2004-05 school year, before the program was implemented. Students receiving free and reduced-price lunches also have increased, from 5.5 percent to 19.5 percent.
Terry Pell, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Individual Rights, which has argued against the Seattle and Louisville plans, said the problem with those two plans is that the districts treat students differently based on the color of their skin. Boulder’s program, even though it has the effect of racially diversifying the school, isn’t as objectionable, he said.
“The school is not using a racial classification,” Pell said. “What’s more, the economic classification does seem reasonably related to an educational goal. So it doesn’t raise any of the kind of concerns that we have about the Seattle plan.”
The Boulder district is implementing a plan similar to Community Montessori’s at two other schools. The district also has put English-language acquisition programs into more schools and made boundary changes to others as a way to diversify schools.
But district officials said Community Montessori – one of the most coveted open-enrollment schools – was an easy choice to launch the pilot program.
“There was a feeling that the benefits of the program should be available to all children, no matter what their background or socioeconomic level,” said Tricia Fitzpatrick, whose daughter is a fifth-grader at Community Montessori and whose son also went through the program.
The district provides transportation for low-income students to get to the school in south Boulder. The school has hired a bilingual community liaison to meet with Latino parents and explain to them the ins and outs of the school.
Rosa Invernizze, the school’s bilingual liaison, said Latino parents have embraced the school’s program.
“They always say their children love to be in school,” In vernizze said. “They talk about school. When Saturday comes, the children are asking, ‘Mom, is it time to go to school?”‘
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
