Q&A: District 196 Integration and Equity Coordinator Scott Thomas

When competing versions of an Omnibus Education Finance Bill recently passed in the Minnesota House and Senate, one feature they both shared was a desire to cut state integration funding to local school districts. While much of the debate over the cuts focused on the effect to the Minneapolis and St. Paul school districts, many other districts across Minnesota will also see a change in their funding if the proposed cuts become law.

Scott Thomas is the integration and equity coordinator for District 196 and he recently spoke to Rosemount Patch's Rick Ellis about the proposed cuts, and why the future of the district's magnet schools is so closely connected with integration funding.

Rosemount Patch: It seems that integration funding is one of those topics that is often misunderstood by the general public. Can you give us a sense of why integration is such a vital concern for District 196 schools?

Scott Thomas: The best explanation is to recognize that patterns of racial segregation still exist. To remediate that, the state has an integration program that is based on voluntary strategies to integrate. That's where our magnet schools come in. And that's also where we have to take a look at access to education and creating pathways so all families have greater access to educational opportunities.

Rosemount Patch: Can you give some examples of those pathways?

Scott Thomas: For instance, we have our magnet program. We've also developed a program called "Young Scholars." We have a family school and we also have our cultural family advocates who do home-school connections to make sure the schools can communicate with families and to make sure students are seeking out all the opportunities available to them.

Rosemount Patch: I get the sense from talking to parents that there is this feeling that overall the District 196 schools are very good and they all deliver a pretty much equal level of education. Is that accurate and if not, what is the reality?

Scott Thomas: And that is a widely held belief anywhere you go. The flipside of that is yes, we definitely have high-performing schools and our success is highly visible. However, when we look a little bit closer and we ask ourselves some important questions, another side of the story emerges.

If we look at the top ten students at any of our schools, there's not a whole lot of diversity there. When we look at college attendance rates or even when we look at student achievement data, we have to recognize that if we are going to meet our mission of all students reaching their full potential, we are not doing that. In particular, that is the case with our students of color and low-income students.

And that matters. All students in District 196 matter. There should never be that racial or socio-economic predictability about who are our highest-performing students. We need to do better for all of our students. We don't get to move from being a good school district to a great school district without ensuring everyone has similar opportunities.

Rosemount Patch: Another perception is that when you are discussing student achievement, socio-economic factors are a stronger predictor that racial background. But I gather that's not the case.

Scott Thomas: No, it's often not the case at all. When you go to rural Minnesota, where there is a high degree of poverty, we still see students performing at very high levels. Income level matters, but we have a situation where as a group low-income white students outperform higher-income students of color. In particular, our Black, Hispanic and Native American students.

Rosemount Patch: When you presented your budget at a recent school board meeting, I was struck by several questions that basically said, "We are always going to have these problems, so why devote so many resources to ensuring educational equality?

Scott Thomas: Without addressing those questions directly, let me just say that all students should matter. We can't afford to sit back and do nothing. Students are failing. And disproportionately, these are low-income and students of color. We should not be okay with those circumstances.

You know, if demographic trends were to continue at the rate that they have for the past ten years, we would be at about 50 percent students of color within ten years. So if our community wants to continue at the rate of achievement we are, and given the demographic shifts in Minnesota, we have to solve these problems.

Rosemount Patch: I spoke with district finance director Jeff Solomon . And while it's too early to know the exact details of the final version of the Education funding bill, it seems likely most or all of the state integration money is going away. What effect is that going to have on your efforts?

Scott Thomas: I'll speak to this from two different perspectives. The first perspective is in my role on the Minnesota Integration Education council. I serve as the president-elect of that group. That is the statewide group of educators who work in roles similar to mine. And also I'm speaking as someone who is committed to what we are doing in this district.

Should the state redirect revenue and not focus on integration as an achievement strategy, then we will see further segregation amongst our schools. It will have a  disastrous impact on all kinds of students.

In our own district, we fund our magnet schools and magnet school transportation with this money. We have three schools that previously had more students leaving them than opting to attend them. They now have waiting lists and they are quite frankly making all of our schools better. We have a sizable number of students open-enrolling to our district to attend these schools and that is creating revenue for us. So we have to be mindful that it's not just students of color being impacted, it is all of our schools.

We have made some substantial investments as a district and we are beginning to see solid results. If the state were to reduce or eliminate that revenue, we would not be following through on the commitment we made to our students or our district.

Rosemount Patch: In our conversation, Mr. Solomon said that the cuts wouldn't have an immediate impact on the magnet schools, but looking out several years, these schools are going to be forced to change dramatically.

Scott Thomas: It is clear that our district wants more school choices, more options for the students. And choice isn't really choice without transportation. We have parents making choices. We have parents not just sending in applications but student's artwork and other achievements. They're bringing their extended families to the schools. They are looking for homes in these attendance areas so they don't have to be on a waiting list. We've never seen anything like it.