Enrollment at Jeffco schools has declined by the thousands prompting officials to close 16 schools in the state’s second-largest district.
Outrage has ensued because no one wants their school to be affected, obviously.
What caught our attention is this report by KDVR Fox 31 in which a parent complaint their child would be sent to school with white kids.
One issue that came up repeatedly was inequity and what this will do to marginalized students.
“Please consolidate schools with similar demographics,” one parent said. “My students are at Vivian elementary, which is predominantly not white, and are going to be put in a school that is predominantly white and wealthy. This is not an ethical consolidation.”
It’s a strange argument to those whose old-fashioned history lessons included the Supreme Court ruling of Brown vs.The Board of Education, and federal marshals escorting six-year-old Ruby Bridges into a Mississippi school of white and wealthy kids.
The controversial practice of busing soon followed, and no longer were minority children segregated from attending white schools.
So when parents cry out for children to be segregated from white children, it still reeks as racism more than a half century later.
Click here to read more about schools affected.
Jeffco, the state’s second-largest district, had 14% fewer children under 18 in 2020 living within its boundaries than it had in 2000. District enrollment has been falling for many years. The current estimate of students this fall is 77,205, down from 87,700 in 2000.