McComb school trustees voted this morning to approve a random homeroom assignment plan for Otken and Kennedy elementary schools to comply with a federal judge’s recent order.
The McComb school board met at 8 a.m. and voted 3-1 to approve the plan proposed to trustees by Superintendent Therese Palmertree.
It calls for using a student management software program (SAM61), which can randomly assign homerooms for kids, without using race as a factor.
Last week the board deadlocked in a 2-2 vote, with Dr. Shade Quin and Dr. Kent Kebert voting for the proposal, and retired school teacher and board president Bettye Nunnery, along with the newest board member, Eleice Rayborn, voting against it. Trustee Maurice Chester was absent.
This morning, Quin, Kebert and Chester voted to send the proposal to attorney Holmes Adams, who will forward it to the U.S. Justice Department.
Rayborn was absent from the meeting. Nunnery did not vote either way during the session, but afterwards, said her vote was no.
The McComb School District had been operating under a desegregation order since 1971. U.S. District Judge Tom Lee ruled that before the district can be completely released from the consent decree, the district must address homeroom assignments. The district had been clustered white students together at the two elementary schools to keep whites from feeling isolated in classes and to discourage white flight from the schools.
The school district had until this week to submit the homeroom assignment plan. The Justice Department will review the proposal and make recommendations to the district.
