The reassignment of pupils to schools throughout the system also lends

itself to a better distribution of professional and non-professional staff. economic groups, and levels of achievement are to be equally mixed in each school, there will be new opportunities and a new need to

Because races,

hire additional black teachers and black staff members, such as custodial and cafeteria workers. Children need models of their own race at all

levels to respect and admire. The 64 black clerical, custodial and cafeteria employees now concentrated in five schools will be distributed throughout all the schools as part of a policy of assigning staff as well as students equally. To be consistent with the standard of group equity, there will be a policy of fair recruitment, selection, placement, and promotion of staff on all levels in the school system.

Stability

The method of assigning students to each school will allow for adjustment of ratios each year to coincide with total population ratios. Since students are not assigned by district, housing patterns or population movements will not affect the distribution of school children. As population changes over the years, the board will be able to maintain the student ratios without changing the basic school plan. By 1974 the construction of a unified Educational Plaza for grades six through eight will bring together all children of these age groups in one place,

encouraging better coordination of program and maintaining a relatively stable student group.

Better education will also have a stabilizing effect on the school population. Both those who go on to further education after high school and those who do not will have better preparation in the Harrisburg schools. Excellence is likely to act as a magnet, holding students and their families who might otherwise seek better programs.

Economy

Neighborhood schools tend to be uneconomical because each one must have facilities such as playgrounds, gyms, auditoriums, and cafeterias. They must also often share the professional services of psychologists, guidance counselors, and art and music teachers, who currently waste much of their time moving from school to school. Neighborhood schools, moreover, vary

greatly from school to school in the quality of their facilities and in their use. Many schools do not have laboratories, nurse's rooms, art rooms, music rooms, guidance counseling facilities, or teachers of specialized subjects or skills.

In the large centralized Early Childhood Centers and Educational Plaza, expensive facilities can be used in common and professional services can be centrally located and available to all. This common use of facilities and services will be far less expensive than the duplication necessary under a neighborhood school system.

The Centers and Educational Plaza can also use teachers and programs more economically. When specialists serve a large number of students, their cost per student is relatively low. Smaller schools could not

afford to meet as many needs because there are not enough students to make the best use of alternatives.

Large-scale educational centers also permit more efficient and economical organization of custodial services, purchasing, and provision of hot

lunches. The Centers and Plaza can save money by dealing in larger quantities.

Although construction of an Educational Plaza may seem to be costly, it may be more economical in the long run than continued renovations of individual schools. Another cost factor of individual school construction

is shifting residential patterns in the community. As people move, new schools must be built and older ones, still sound, become under-utilized. The reorganized schools with their large attendance area are impervious to such shifting residential fashions. The Centers and Plaza can provide more economically for absolute population growth.

Although more children will be transported under the school reorganization plan, some of this additional cost can be offset by what the parent now pays. Parents who drive their children to school or who send them on public buses now bear much of the present cost o transportation.

SECTION III

HOW STUDENTS WILL BE ASSIGNED

To see how well our short-term plan would work we analyzed the possible distribution of students enrolled in several different grades, and found that the plan would require busing approximately 28.8 per cent of the total number of the present enrollment in the public schools of the Harrisburg school system. We arrived at this figure by estimating that children could walk to school a distance that ranges in some cases to perhaps a mile but that the great majority would walk a distance of less than half a mile, approximately what they are walking presently.

Pennsylvania law states that a child may walk to school up to a mile and a half. If the law were applied strictly, the percentage that would require busing would probably be reduced to less than half of our estimate.

We understand that the geographical situation of Harrisburg, the need to cross railroad tracks, and the lack of traffic lights in many crossroads make rigid application of the law practically impossible, but we must emphasize that, if for economic reasons the board must reduce the amount of busing, the implementation of our plan will not suffer. creasing the distance which a student is required to walk to school would mean reducing the number of children being bused.

Slightly in

Pupil populations, by schools and classes within schools, will be

balanced according to the following criteria:

1. Race evenly distributed with a maximum variance of 10 per cent from

59-411 O 71 pt. 14 - 5

2.

the total percentages of black and whites enrolled in the system.

Sex of students evenly distributed among all schools and classes within schools.

3. Children from below poverty-line families evenly distributed, with

a maximum variance of 10 per cent from the total within the Harrisburg

School District.

4.

5.

For grades three through six, extremes of an achievement scale evenly distributed, so that all schools will have about the same percentage of children deficient in basic skills, as well as of the most capable of pursuing independent study.

Residential location considered in assigning schools, so as to mini

mize busing.

Early Childhood Centers

To calculate the minimal busing involved in our plan, we had to have figures for the total enrollment in the 4 and 5-year-old kindergarten. These estimates were provided by the Director of Pupil Accounting and Child Guidance of the Harrisburg School District. We projected this year's figures on next year's classes. (See Table 1)

Approximately 20 per cent of the eight hundred children going to 4K will not need to be bused because they live in the immediate vicinity of the Early Childhood Centers. Of the one thousand estimated 5-year-old kindergarten children, we predict that approximately 35 per cent will be bused.