Omaha school system will be split into three separate districts

One district would be mostly black, one would be mostly white, and the third would be mostly Hispanic. Each new district would have its own school board elected by voters in its part of the city.

Current leaders of the Omaha school district oppose the plan, calling it “state-sponsored segregation,” and say they will try to have it overturned.

The state Senate approved the bill on a 31-16 vote. (Nebraska is the only state with a single legislative body.)

In addition to the racially identifiable districts, the law, which would take effect in July 2008, sets up a two-county “learning community.”

All public school districts in Douglas and Sarpy counties could be required to share tax money, allow students to attend any school that has capacity, and implement an integration and diversity plan.

The measure was crafted by state Sen. Ron Raikes of Lincoln and was supported by Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, the only African-American in the Nebraska Senate and a long-time critic of the Omaha school system.

According to Chambers, the intent is not to promote segregation, but to give black residents more control over a school district with a majority of black children.

Raikes maintains the new law does more to promote integration and fiscal equity than the “One City, One School District” plan proposed by the Omaha school board last June. Under that plan, the board proposed using an 1891 state law to annex portions of the neighboring, suburban districts of Millard, Ralston, Elkhorn, and Westside Community.

Omaha Superintendent John Mackiel and school board President Sandra Jensen, a former member of the NSBA Board of Directors, said in a letter to parents last year, “It is the district’s understanding and belief that not only did the legislature intend there to be one citywide school district in the city of Omaha, but also that such a provision is appropriate and necessary to maintain a voluntarily integrated, diverse, and financially stable school system.”

Millard Superintendent Keith Lutz called the annexation plan “devastating” to his district and compared it to a declaration of war. All four districts formed the Coalition to Preserve Educational Choices for Families and hired outside legal, lobbying, and public relations firms to help them remain independent and preserve their boundaries.

The new law was developed as a compromise to the “One City, One School District” proposal. “Nobody is jumping up and down about all of the parts of [the new law], but the self-preservation of our boundaries was the most important objective to us,” Lutz says. “This bill does that and we support it.”

Omaha has 46,700 students: 44 percent white, 32 percent black, 21 percent Hispanic, and 3 percent Asian or Native American. Boundaries for the three new districts would be drawn using current high school attendance areas.

By court order, the Omaha school district operated a busing program aimed at school integration from 1976 to 1999. The end of busing resulted in a reconcentration of minority students in parts of the district.

Mackiel, an opponent of the new law, says, “Multiple school districts in Omaha create inequity and compromise the opportunity for a genuine sense of community.”

The Omaha school board’s attorney, Elizabeth Eynon-Kokrda, says the new law is unconstitutional. Board members “believe they need to move quickly to work with everybody in the community to create an acceptable resolution to this challenge that would offer equal and equitable opportunity to all children in the Omaha metro area,” she says. “They have not ruled out legal measures, if necessary.”

Civil rights leaders call the new law the most blatant recent effort in the nation to create segregated school districts. Tommie Wilson, president of the Omaha chapter of the NAACP, vowed to use every option, including legal action, to fight the law.