Schools struggle to meet new race-labeling rules
Washington school districts are struggling with a new federal requirement to gather more specific information on the ethnicity of their students, a policy that encourages officials to guess when parents don't supply race information.
The Associated Press
SEATTLE — Washington school districts are struggling with a new federal requirement to gather more specific information on the ethnicity of their students, a policy that encourages officials to guess when parents don't supply race information.
Federal Way Superintendent Tom Murphy calls the new policy for the 2010-11 school year bizarre.
For years, parents have been asked to identify the race and ethnicity of their children, but now the federal government has changed the rules, eliminating the choices of "unknown," "multiracial," or "declined to answer."
School districts across the state have called the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to complain about the policy or to ask for guidance and training, said agency spokesman Nate Olson.
The forms are more specific now, with dozens more choices if a child is Latino or Asian. Parents may check as many boxes as they want if a child is multiracial.
The state of Washington has added to the mix by asking American Indian parents to specify which tribe they are from, so the form in this state has nearly 70 ethnic choices.
Black and white non-Hispanic families are not asked to get specific about their ethnic heritage.
Schools are now required to attempt to fill in the blanks when families don't return forms asking for information.
That has outraged some parents, including two in Sequim who spoke up at a recent school board meeting.
"The notion that school district employees would be put in the business of such racial profiling, and a school secretary sitting children down trying to guess what their race is ... it just flabbergasts us," said Susanne
Thursday, June 17
Wednesday, June 16