Five Connecticut elementary schools failed to meet the state’s racial diversity requirement this school year. Some have been unbalanced for years, according to a state Department of Education report.
The five schools are New Lebanon and Hamilton Avenue schools in Greenwich, Charter Oak International Academy in West Hartford, Church Street School in Hamden, and McKinley School in Fairfield.
“It is a vibrant, prideful and enriched learning environment that has attracted many English as a first language learners, recent immigrants to be able to learn,” said Republican State Senator Tony Hwang of Fairfield, in defense of the high concentration of racial minorities in his town’s McKinley School.
“Test scores do not reflect it because they don’t understand the language,” Hwang said.
“The legislation in regards to addressing the racial imbalance is looking to address that. And I applaud that. But McKinley is such a unique school. That it is not a second tier kind of congregation of the minority population,” Hwang added.
To be considered diverse, a Connecticut school has to be in a school district having a minority population of 50% and a school minority population of at least 25%, but less than 75%.
