ELC News - Commissioner Finds Segregation Persists in Englewood

Once again, a November 16th report by NJ Education Commissioner Lucille Davy has concluded that the exclusive magnet school choice program at Englewood's Dwight Morrow High School (DMHS) has failed to address the long-standing segregation of students at the school. This time, however, the Commissioner has directed the district take action, with benchmarks and time frames, to consolidate the Academies @ Englewood magnet with DMHS in order to create one high school organized around the five "academies" currently in place by 2008. The Commissioner has also vowed to collaborate with the district in order to insure continuous and timely progress towards these goals.

The Commissioner’s report finds that, four years into the magnet program designed to desegregate DMHS, the student body at the general high school remains 96% Black and Latino. Thus, the gains in integration associated with the magnet school, which now has a student body comprised of almost equal percentages of Whites, Asians, Blacks, and Latinos, "do not yet extend to the entire student body of DHMS." In addition, the district continues to fall short of the goal that it admit to the magnet 75 resident students each year, and has impermissibly filled seats reserved for local students with out-of-district pupils.

The report also finds sharp differences in educational quality persist between the two schools, concluding that although on the same campus, "students at DMHS and the Academies experience two separate and distinct schools." While Academies @ Englewood students attend school in a climate of high expectations, accompanied by all of the hallmarks of a fine education, "[a]t DHMS, a climate of high expectations, support and standards is not evident," equipment and technology are lacking, and the curricula is neither rigorous nor engaging.

The Commissioner proposes changes aimed at preparing resident middle-grade and DMHS students for Academy-level work so that, by fall 2006, the Academies program clusters will be "unified" in one campus facility; by fall 2007, 75 percent of ninth graders will be enrolled in an Academies program at DMHS; and by fall 2008, all students will be enrolled in an academy program. The report does not address the effect that consolidating the two schools will have on the racial balance of the high school.

Englewood parents and students remain deeply concerned about the Commissioner’s plan for their school. With support from the NJ Conference of the NAACP and ELC, a meeting will be held on December 12th for parents and students to discuss the issues raised by the report and to determine next steps.