New Agreement Is Reached in Hartford Desegregation

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STAMFORD, Conn. — Schools in Hartford and 22 of its suburbs would be encouraged to open more classroom seats to children from outside their neighborhoods in order to increase racial diversity, under a tentative settlement reached Friday in a decades-old desegregation case.

The settlement, which still requires the approval of Connecticut legislators and the state court handling the dispute, outlines a five-year plan whose goal is to get at least 41 percent of Hartford’s minority students into schools where enrollments are no more than three-quarters minority.

In the first year, the goal would be at least 19 percent. Approximately 94 percent of the 22,000 students now enrolled in Hartford’s 40 public schools are minority — defined by the settlement as black, Hispanic, American Indian, Asian or Pacific islander. Achieving the goals depends on students crossing district lines in a region where students, over all, are about 45 percent minority.

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The tentative deal, confirmed in separate interviews with state officials and the people who filed the lawsuit in 1989, opens the possibility of resolving a case that has outlasted three governors but has yet to bring sweeping changes to the composition of Hartford’s public schools. The case is known as Sheff v. O’Neill, for the original lead plaintiff, Milo Sheff, who was 10 when the lawsuit began, and former Gov. William A. O’Neill, who died in November.

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But he (Sheff) is realistic about whether true change may take longer. “It will be 40 years before something notable happens,” he said.

NY Times