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Community High black enrollment up but trails other schools

Community High black enrollment up but trails other schools image
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Day
28
Month
August
Year
1991
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Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
OCR Text

Community High black enrollment up but trails other schools

By DAVE WILKINS

NEWS STAFF REPORTER

AUG 2 8 1991

More black students are attending Community High School this year, but its minority enrollment still lags behind other Ann Arbor schools.

With school starting today, 10 percent of Community’s students are black, compared with less than 5 percent last year. Across the district, about 18 percent of the students in grades 6-12 are black.

Community is a small, alternative high school that selects students on a first-come, first-served basis: One

morning in February, the school signs up prospects for the following school ye^r.

This year, the line began forming at 1 a.m., and when the roster was completed, no black students had been added to the school and 14 were on the waiting list.

In May, petitioners asked the Ann Arbor Board of Education to allow the black students on the waiting list to attend Community so the school’s racial makeup would be closer to the district average. The board agreed.

Ten of the 14 students accepted the offer, and two additional black applicants have been admitted as well.

Now, 34 of Community’s 342 students are black. About

8 percent are from other minority groups, compared with 9-10 percent of all the district’s secondary students.

Community Dean Bob Galardi hopes the increased proportion of black students will make the school more attractive to other blacks. Officials will continue efforts to recruit minorities, he said.

Also, Galardi expects the school’s staff, students and parents to settle on a new admissions policy before the selection process begins early next year.

His suggestion: selecting students through a lottery of all applicants, with seats reserved for minorities until Community mirrors the district racially and ethnically.