subdividing these zones so that the central pupil accounting division can pinpoint more exactly the area where a child lives.

Distribution

will be accomplished with the help of a computer, which guarantees the

complete objectivity of the assignments.

SECTION IV

PREPARATORY STEPS

Between May and September, 1970, the Harrisburg Public Schools should take

certain steps to prepare for the new school organization.

are advisable:

Staff

The following

1.

2.

3.

Set up several orientation workshops for teachers, supervisors, and

administrators to familiarize them with the new organization.

Set up orientation workshops for non-professional staff.

Increase recruitment of well-qualified black teachers.

4. Provide opportunities for early childhood teachers to meet and discuss

needed facilities.

They should also have the opportunity to work with

the buildings and grounds committee in defining and implementing these

needs.

5. Provide curriculum workshops for teachers on all levels to plan new curriculum and coordinate curriculum throughout the grades. Although curriculum probably should not change radically in the first year, the reorganization of the schools will provide new opportunities for imaginative programs and teaching methods. Staff may want to revise social studies, language arts, math and science, and to include programs specifically geared to educationally disadvantaged children

6.

and slow learners.

Provide training sessions for early childhood and elementary teachers most of whom will not have taught in desegregated classes. Topics

should include learning styles, pupil performance, teacher-pupil relations, teacher expectations (it is important to generate high expectations of all students), and discipline.

Teachers should

suggest topics for future training sessions. Each early childhood and elementary teacher might spend a week or more during this spring at a school with a different racial composition under a school

exchange program.

Students

1. Arrange orientation meetings for students in their new schools with their teachers. Ninth graders, now assigned to the high school for the first time, should also meet at the high school with teachers and some upper classmen before school opens.

2.

3.

Provide as many interracial experiences as possible for children before September of 1970. Some of these activities might include: (a) a frank discussion in each elementary school class, perhaps led by a school psychologist, on racial relations and racial feelings; (b) field trips shared by students who would be in the same classes in September; (c) city-wide pupil exchanges; and (d) a two or three day science and arts encampment in which fifth and sixth graders participate together. Students in fourth, fifth, and sixth grades might form a youth council to plan projects for the new school setting. Assign in each of the elementary schools additional black teacher aides, a home-school counselor, a psychologist, and a reading teacher

where possible.

Volunteer parents can also help students adjust

under the new plan.

Parents

1. Send to all parents a fact sheet on reorganization, including

2.

information on new programs, bus schedules and some of the problems involved.

Arrange for all parents of children in Early Childhood Centers and elementary schools to ride the bus route before their children

attend schools in the fall.

3. Recruit parents to be supervisors on the buses.

4.

PTAs reorganized for each of the new schools should send letters of welcome to parents.