


































The dynamics of race and education:  A case study of South Boulevard 

Elementary 
 

Heather K Olson Beal 

Stephen F. Austin State University 
 

Abstract:  This article is part of a larger case 

study of South Boulevard Elementary—a 

foreign language immersion magnet school in 

Baton Rouge, Louisiana—a city with a dual 

school system:  one public and 83 percent 

Black,
1 

the other private and 85 percent non-

Black. This article chronicles the relationship 

between race and education throughout the 

school history and explores the ways in which 

current parents‟ attitudes towards South 

Boulevard reflect historical themes regarding 

race and education. 

 

Incomplete or inaccurate narratives 

regarding Southern educational history 

dominate mainstream thought. One common 

misconception is that because enslaved Africans 

were forbidden to learn to read, they remained 

illiterate, when in fact, many were literate. 

Another assumption is that all Reconstruction-

era Black schools were inferior to White schools 

in terms of facilities and resources (Jones-

Wilson 1981; Perry 2003; Siddle Walker 1996). 

Another narrative is that schools were integrated 

after the 1954 Supreme Court Brown decision, 

when many school districts actually desisted 

desegregation for years. Many Americans talk 

as if the struggle for educational equity began 

with Brown, whereas Black activists and 

intellectuals such as W. E. B. DuBois, Carter G. 

Woodson, Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells, and 

Mary McLeod Bethune had long been pursuing 

these goals (Ambrose 1999; Culver 1954; 

Hendry and Edwards 2009; Tyack 1974). These 

narratives present a “historically incomplete 

picture” (Siddle Walker 1996, 13). 

I grew up and attended Southern public 

schools during the 1970s and was never exposed 

to any of the complexities surrounding 

desegregation in school. I was in college before 

I first heard of the Little Rock Nine and in a 

doctoral program where I first read about the 

Southern Manifesto and learned about high-

quality segregated Black schools that were a 

source of pride in their communities (Perry 

2003). I never knew that some Black parents 

and teachers fought for the right to maintain 

segregated schools (Cecelski 1994; Kluger 

1975/2004) or that some Black lawyers and 

activists opposed Brown (Bell 2004). How 

could I not have known that there was more to 

the history of race and education?  I was a 

straight-A student who read everything I was 

asked to read and paid attention in class. The 

answer is simple: my teachers either didn‟t 

know that there was more to the story, or they 

chose not to share it with us. 

The issues associated with race and 

education in the United States are complex and 

reflect historical and current tensions between 

the promise of democracy and the 

disappointment of unfulfilled promises. We 

romanticize schools as incubators of democracy 

wherein students of all races, creeds, religions, 

and tongues can attend school together, grow 

intellectually, and learn how to be active 

participants in a democratic society. In reality, 

however, schools have segregated, tracked, and 

differentiated between students and thus have 



22 

 

not delivered on either the promise of 

educational equity or the promise of racial and 

socioeconomic diversity. 

This article is part of a larger case study 

of South Boulevard Elementary—a public 

magnet school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a city 

with a dual school system: one public and 83% 

Black and the other private and 85% non-Black 

(Olson Beal 2008). Although racial segregation 

and achievement gaps persist in Baton Rouge, 

as elsewhere around the United States, South 

Boulevard is a counterexample because it has 

achieved integration and academic achievement 

well above district and state averages on high 

stakes tests. Findings from the larger study 

suggest that the primary explanation for South 

Boulevard‟s success is the unique culture 

created by the foreign language immersion 

curriculum. South Boulevard is a partial 

immersion program, which means that students 

spend 60 percent of their instructional time in 

either French or Spanish. They are taught math, 

science, and social studies in French or Spanish 

by native French- or Spanish-speaking teachers, 

and have a daily 90-minute block of English 

Language Arts taught by native English-

speaking teachers. 

The immersion program helps create a 

culture of academic rigor in which teachers have 

high expectations of all students. South 

Boulevard has a culture of multiplicity that 

values diverse perspectives and includes a 

unique immersion subculture in which all 

students are equal participants. South Boulevard 

has a culture of community characterized by 

trusting relationships between members of the 

school community that emerge out of 

commitment to the immersion curriculum rather 

than geographical boundaries. While the larger 

case study focused on the factors that motivated 

a diverse set of parents to choose public over 

private education, this article explores the ways 

in which current parents‟ attitudes towards 

South Boulevard reflect historical themes 

regarding race and education. 

 

Research Design 

Because the research questions focus on 

process and experience rather than product or 

outcome, qualitative research methods were 

used to “study things in their natural settings, 

attempting to make sense of, or to interpret, 

phenomena in terms of the meanings people 

bring to them” (Denzin and Lincoln 2000, 3). 

Data collection consisted primarily of 

interviews and participant observation, but also 

included document analysis (e.g., newspaper 

and magazine articles, brochures, flyers, and 

maps, the Louisiana School Directory, and 

Louisiana State Department of Education 

demographic data). As the researcher, I 

occupied a unique vantage point as both parent 

of South Boulevard students and participant 

observer of daily life at South Boulevard. 

Parental involvement lasted six years—nearly 

two of which were spent as a researcher 

immersed in the school. I conducted on-site 

participant observation for one full academic 

semester, with follow-up fieldwork for two 

subsequent semesters. In addition to school 

hours, I attended open houses, recruiting events, 

monthly PTO and school board meetings, 

fundraisers, field trips, and carnivals. Acting as 

both insider and outsider (Spradley 1980) gave 

me automatic entrée with many study 

participants. My experience as a Spanish teacher 

facilitated interactions with teachers.  

I conducted semi-structured interviews 

with 53 total participants. Table 1 displays 

pertinent information about the interview 



23 

 

participants. Although the primary source of 

data was a single, one-hour interview, some 

follow-up interviews were conducted. Using 

purposeful sampling, I selected participants who 

reflected the diversity of backgrounds and 

perspectives found in the school community. I 

also used a form of snowball sampling, asking 

school staff and parents to recommend people to 

interview. Teacher interview participants 

included Spanish and French immersion 

teachers, English Language Arts teachers, and 

school administrators. 

 

Table 1: Interviewees 

 

Because the focus of the larger study 

was parents‟ rationale in choosing South 

Boulevard, the majority of interview 

participants were parents. Parent interviews 

covered parents‟ pre-school choices; types of 

schools they visited prior to choosing; resources 

used to gather information regarding available 

choices; rationale for choosing South 

Boulevard; and parents‟ retroactive evaluation 

of the decision. Table 2 illustrates the diversity 

of parents in the sample—including gender, 

race, professional background, and marital 

status—factors previously identified as 

significant in the school choice process 

(Bankston and Caldas 2002). Participants from 

diverse religious backgrounds were included 

because of Louisiana‟s history of parochial 

schooling. Pseudonyms are used throughout to 

maintain participants‟ anonymity. 

Data analysis was an inductive process 

wherein themes, patterns, and categories 

emerged based on the raw data (interview 

transcripts and fieldnotes). Verbatim interview 

transcripts, meeting minutes, and fieldwork 

journal notes were analyzed line by line, 

breaking the data down into units of meaning 

that served as themes that were first subjected to 

a systematic content analysis and then the 

constant comparative method (Glaser and 

Strauss 1967). Events, ideas, themes, processes, 

or happenings that shared common 

characteristics were placed into the same code. 

In the initial analysis of parent interview data, 

for instance, each unit of meaning was placed 

into one of the following broad themes: 1) 

comments about themselves, 2) comments about 

choosing South Boulevard, 3) comments about 

South Boulevard students, and 4) comments 

about magnet programs. These themes were 

then subdivided into ten emergent categories 

(Strauss and Corbin 1998). Unifying phrases 

and themes that emerged across categories were 

identified. These codes or categories serve as 

the basis of the data analysis. 

 

The Study Context: Present-day South 

Boulevard 

South Boulevard is one of the smallest 

public elementary schools in East Baton Rouge 

Parish (EBRP), with only 211 students enrolled 

in 2006-2007. Like many EBRP schools, the 

physical facility of South Boulevard is 

dilapidated and deteriorated due to years of 

neglect and failed property tax renewals. 



24 

 

Table 2: Current South Boulevard parents in the study sample 
P

se
u

d
o

n
y

m

C
h

il
d

re
n

 a
t 

S
B

R
a

ce

G
en

d
er

O
ri

g
in

 (
L

A
 o

r 

o
th

er
)

E
d

u
ca

ti
o

n

P
ro

fe
ss

io
n

R
el

ig
io

n

M
a

ri
ta

l 
st

a
tu

s

Alicia 2 B F Baton Rouge, LA Ph.D. professor “Christian pluralist” married

Andrea 2 W F New Orleans, LA some college self-employed Catholic married

Anthony 1 B M Baton Rouge, LA BS graduate student
Raised Catholic, not 

practicing
married

Brad 1 W M other Ph.D. engineer none married

Bridget 1 W F other BA stay-at-home-mom none married

Camille 3 B F Baton Rouge, LA MA

State employee / on-

line college 

instructor

Baptist married

Christian 2 W M Baton Rouge, LA BA self-employed none married

David 1 W M Baton Rouge, LA some college
bartender / LSU 

student

Raised Catholic, not 

practicing
single

Denise 2 W F Baton Rouge, LA MA, Ed.S.
Nationally Board 

Certified Teacher

Raised Catholic, not 

practicing
married

Donald 1 B M Baton Rouge, LA some college firefighter none single

Felicia 2 B F Baton Rouge, LA HS bank teller evangelical single

Hong 2 A F Vietnam BS lab tech. Catholic married

Javier 1 H M other Bible school pastor evangelical married

Ken 3 B M New Orleans, LA MA estate planning
Methodist; wife is 

Catholic
married

Laura 1 H F other Bible school pastor evangelical married

Liz 1 W F other MA stay-at-home-mom none married

Mona 1 B F Baton Rouge, LA BS
night police 

dispatcher
none single

Richard 3 W M Baton Rouge, LA some college state employee Muslim married

Shannon 2 W F other BS engineer Baptist married

Susan 1 W F other some college legal assistant Lutheran single

Tanecia 3 B F Opelousas, LA MA librarian Muslim married

Terrence 2 B M Baton Rouge, LA some college firefighter / realtor
Raised Catholic,  not 

practicing
married

Tracy 2 B F Baton Rouge, LA MA
community college 

instructor
Baptist married

Yolanda 1 B F Baton Rouge, LA MA state employee Baptist single
 

Originally built in 1949 by renowned 

local architect A. Hayes Town, South Boulevard 

is comprised of multiple buildings laid out on a 

sloping piece of property near downtown Baton 

Rouge. The exterior windows are covered with 

several layers of peeling paint. Huge rust and 

mildew stains streak down the bricks of the 

school exterior. Rusted barbed wire tops the 

fence around the perimeter of the building. 

The interior of the building suffers 

similarly from decades of neglect, except for the 

entryway, which was updated in 2002. A large, 

colorful world map rug greets visitors as they 

enter the door and welcoming phrases, such as 

“Bonjour” and “Bienvenidos” are painted on the 

walls in multiple languages and colors. Beyond 

the entryway, the building remains in its original 

form. Inside the classrooms, walls of windows 



25 

 

are covered by broken Venetian blinds. Huge air 

conditioning units hang precariously from the 

ceilings. During one site visit, a teacher was re-

arranging her classroom because she had grown 

tired of “black chunks falling out of the air 

conditioner” onto her desk. 

The original school gym has never been 

updated and does not have air conditioning. 

Many gym floor tiles are broken, cracked, or 

missing. The gym is littered with old equipment, 

such as a broken pommel horse, that has not 

been used in years. Students regularly use the 

gym for P.E. as well as for daily morning 

assemblies. All school-wide meetings and 

programs are held in the gym, where parents 

sweat in the south Louisiana heat. The poor 

condition of the playground rivals that of the 

gym. Original playground equipment includes 

an old set of climbing equipment with peeling 

red paint, a set of six swings (several of which 

are broken), and a low balance beam. 

The small cafeteria accommodates only 

128 students. Two rusty wall-mount air 

conditioning units and two floor fans run 

continuously to try to keep the temperature 

down. The speech teacher‟s “office” (a teacher‟s 

desk and a student desk hidden behind a wall 

divider) is crammed into one corner. The library 

is something of a school hub despite its small 

size. Fourth- and fifth-grade girls gossip at stone 

patio tables outside the library during recess. 

The view from those tables is the expansive 

interstate (I-10) that extends from Texas to 

Florida. Noise from the interstate is resounding 

to newcomers, but students and teachers are 

accustomed to it. 

The physical facility of South Boulevard 

stands as a monument of sorts to the 

consequences of lack of community support in 

terms of tax dollars allocated for education. 

Indeed, the EBRP community voted down every 

tax proposal between 1964 and 1998 that would 

have provided for construction of new public 

schools and maintenance of old ones (Jacobs 

2008). In order to better understand the socio-

political conditions present in order for South 

Boulevard to be in its current condition, I turn 

now to a brief history of education in Baton 

Rouge. 

 

History of Education in Baton Rouge 

Anderson (1988) identifies two 

contradictory traditions regarding education in 

the antebellum South: a campaign to repress and 

even criminalize literacy among Blacks and a 

campaign for free public education for Whites. 

Baton Rouge is somewhat unique, however, 

because of its long history of private and 

parochial education. Before the Civil War, in 

fact, there was no public education in Baton 

Rouge (Carleton 1981; Frazier 1937). Many 

believed that public schools were primarily for 

poor children (Stone 1992; Suarez 2004). 

Children of wealthy White planters and some 

free people of color attended parochial schools 

or had private tutors (Carleton 1981). Some 

slaves learned to read and write in informal 

settings, secret meetings, and churches—even 

though it was a felony to teach slaves to read 

and write (punishable by one to 12 months in 

prison) (Middleton 1984). 

After Robert E. Lee‟s surrender at 

Appomattox in 1865, Blacks exulted in the 

potential of their newly-acquired freedom. They 

first sought to reestablish relationships split by 

the slave auctions of the past, clamoring to 

county courthouses to register their marriages 

and record the names and birthdates of their 

children (Ripley 1976). Congress quickly passed 

the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth 



26 

 

Amendments to the Constitution and the Civil 

Rights Act of 1866, which entitled emancipated 

slaves to full civil liberties under the law. 

Former slaves also sought to attain educational 

opportunities. Northern churches and 

missionaries and the Freedmen‟s Bureau 

established schools for emancipated slaves. By 

1865, the Freedmen‟s Bureau was operating 

four schools for Black children in EBRP, with a 

total of 902 students (Ripley 1976). Sixty 

Sunday schools and twenty night schools also 

operated in southern Louisiana (Crouch 2000). 

For Blacks in Louisiana, civil rights and equal 

educational opportunity had become 

synonymous. 

In 1877, however, Union soldiers 

withdrew from Louisiana and the former White 

planter elite of the Democratic Party returned to 

power, chasing Blacks from the state legislature 

and imposing the “Jim Crow” system of 

segregated public facilities on Louisiana. In the 

infamous 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, the 

U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality 

of racial segregation throughout the nation. A 

new state constitution in 1898 required that 

voters own property, pay a poll tax, and 

demonstrate literacy. These restrictions 

disfranchised thousands of former slaves who 

had been able to vote between 1868 and 1898. 

Despite socio-political tensions, private 

and public education for Blacks in Baton Rouge 

grew tremendously during this period. In EBRP, 

two Black public schools were established by 

1877 and were consolidated into the Hickory 

Street School in 1891. Black enrollment at the 

Hickory Street School grew from 176 students 

in 1907-08 to 1,045 students in 1912. 

Overcrowding was such a problem that some 

Black schools held half-day sessions in the 

lower elementary grades to accommodate 

increased enrollment. In 1914, the first modern 

school building for Blacks in Louisiana was 

built with $25,000 from a bond issue. According 

to Frazier, construction of this new building had 

an “electric effect upon the general attitude of 

Negroes in Baton Rouge in respect to public 

education” (Frazier 1937, 77). The city built the 

Reddy Street School in 1916 and the Scott 

Street School in 1920 to accommodate increased 

enrollment.  

McKinley High School, the first Black 

EBRP public high school, was built in 1926. At 

the time, there were only three other Black 

public high schools in Louisiana. Black high 

school students from the greater Baton Rouge 

area flocked to McKinley, a “showplace for 

Negro schools in the state, and people from 

Louisiana and the surrounding states came to 

observe the new school” (Gaston 1971, 82). 

McKinley High School was a first-rate 

institution and the centerpiece of the Black 

community in Baton Rouge. 

Despite the strides made in terms of 

public education for Blacks, Table 3 illustrates 

the inequities between the two systems (Frazier 

1937). White parish school boards controlled 

public education and strove to limit education 

for Blacks. 

Despite the inequities and obstacles they 

faced, the Black community in Baton Rouge 

fought tirelessly to educate their children and 

took pride in their progress. 

A History of South Boulevard 

 This dual school system was in place 

when Beauregard (now South Boulevard) 

Elementary was originally built. In 1949, 158 

White students enrolled at Beauregard 

Elementary while 1,091 Black students—many 

of whom lived in Beauregard Town (one of the 

oldest neighborhoods in Baton Rouge)—



27 

 

Table 3: Comparison of Black and White schooling in EBRP, 1934-35 

 

1934-35 Blacks Whites 

Average daily attendance 5,361 8,403 

Teacher/Pupil ratio 1:61 1:27 

Average elementary teacher 

salary 
$479.62/year $1,002.03/year 

Average high school teacher 

salary 
$824.34  $1,179.26  

Per pupil expenditures $10.01  $60.82  

Percent of total enrollment 39% 61% 

Percentage of total school budget 13% 87% 

 

 

enrolled at Reddy Street Elementary, about a 

half mile away (Staff 1949). While 

overcrowding was a system-wide problem, it 

affected Black schools more than White 

schools. According to a January 1, 1949 State 

Times article, “The negro school system is very 

badly overcrowded, the facilities for negro high 

school students being sufficient for only 630 

students while there should be accommodation 

for approximately 2,750” (Staff 1949). Table 4 

illustrates some of the disparities between Black 

and White schools in EBRP during this time. 

The inequity between White and Black 

schooling in Baton Rouge demonstrates that 

attitudes regarding segregation and White 

supremacy were deeply entrenched in Baton 

Rouge. Education was a primary site in which 

those prevailing attitudes were enacted and 

reinforced (Anderson 1988; Reynolds and 

Schramm 2002).

 

Table 4. Comparison of Black and White schools in EBRP, 1949 

1949 

EBRP 

Black 

Schools 

EBRP White 

Schools 

Average daily attendance 6,393 10,860 

Teacher/Pupil ratio 1:33 1:23 

Per pupil expenditures (1945) $44.87  $141.92  

(Data obtained from the Louisiana Department of Education Annual and Statistical Report for  

1945 and from the Baton Rouge Advocate) 

 



28 

 

Despite the landmark Brown ruling that 

declared segregated schools unconstitutional, 

Whites maintained segregated schools as they 

had always done (Brown 2004; Cremin 1988). 

EBRP schools were no exception. The EBRP 

Black community responded by demanding 

compliance with the court mandate. In 1956, 

thirty-seven North Baton Rouge Black parents 

(in conjunction with the NAACP) whose 

children were denied admission to White 

schools challenged the constitutionality of 

EBRP‟s de facto segregated school system 

(Davis, et al. 1961). The case, which remained 

opened and contested until 2007, became one of 

the nation‟s longest running desegregation 

lawsuits. 

In 1959, Beauregard Elementary became 

a “Negro” school, its name was changed to 

South Boulevard Elementary, and enrollment 

soared from 195 White students in 1958 to 341 

Black students in 1960. Enrollment reached its 

peak in 1966 with 539 Black students—a 

staggering number of students for a small 

building that currently houses approximately 

250 students (including 2 portable buildings). 

Louisiana schools were still completely 

segregated and unequally funded ten years after 

Brown. In 1964, out of 1,442 public schools in 

Louisiana, 510 were Black and 932 were White 

(Stone 1992). In 1966-67, the per pupil 

inventory value of school facilities was 

$1,303.74 for White schools and $1,090.95 for 

Black schools (Davis 1999). Rather than 

forcibly desegregate schools, the EBRP school 

board initiated a “freedom of choice” plan 

which theoretically allowed students to 

voluntarily integrate. In 1963, 28 Black high 

school seniors voluntarily integrated four 

selected EBRP White high schools. In 1968, in 

the Green v. County School Board of New Kent 

County, Virginia decision (Green), the Supreme 

Court ruled freedom of choice plans 

unconstitutional because they had not been 

successful in integrating single-race schools. 

The results of freedom of choice desegregation 

in EBRP were as follows: 70 out of 101 EBRP 

schools were less than one percent integrated in 

the 1968-69 school year (Davis 1999). 

After freedom of choice integration 

failed, EBRP desegregated school personnel, 

buses, and extracurricular activities in 1970-71 

in an event known as the “cross-over.” In 

EBRP, sixty-five percent of Black and 35% of 

White teachers were reassigned by court order 

to schools in which students were 

predominantly of a different race (Davis 1999). 

Nationwide, staff integration had devastating 

consequences for Black teachers and 

administrators, many of whom had long served 

as role models in the Black community. While 

White principalships in Louisiana increased 

from 940 in 1969 to 1,043 in 1971, Black 

principalships decreased from 512 in 1966 to 

363 (Butler 1974; Karpinski 2006).  

Two White cross-over teachers from 

South Boulevard participated in this study. Ms. 

Weber, a novice White teacher who replaced a 

veteran Black teacher in 1971, confessed that 

when she first got to South Boulevard, “it was a 

total shock. I don‟t even know if I had ever 

spoken to a Black child before. And there I was 

in school with all Black children.”  Ms. Weber 

described it as a difficult transition: “We [the 

White cross over teachers] kind of tended to 

huddle together a little bit. And they didn‟t 

know what to do with us. And we didn‟t know 

exactly how to fit in with them.”  She described 

the Black teachers as “very guarded…here are 

these White teachers coming in and looking at 

us, watching what we‟re doing.” 



29 

 

Ms. Weber described South Boulevard 

as a “neighborhood school where all the Black 

students and Black teachers knew each other. 

They were very close. It was pretty much a 

closed community just like the White schools in 

our neighborhoods.” She described the students 

as “very poor. Almost all of them, if not every 

one of them, ate free lunch…whether they 

deserved it or not.”  She recounted the following 

story:  “This one kid came back in the sixth 

grade and told us about his summer vacation. 

He had been to the Bahamas and came back and 

ate free lunch. So that‟s the kind of thing that 

went on. And if they didn‟t qualify, they found a 

way to qualify.”  She explained that “you 

couldn‟t smile, you had to be strict, and you had 

to have eyes all over your head because they 

were tricky. They just did things. You had to be 

so sharp and guarded all the time.”  She 

described the Black students as unmotivated and 

prone to “a lot of mischief and misbehavior” 

and the Black teachers as having “dubious 

qualifications from bogus or nonexistent 

schools.” Ms. Weber taught at South Boulevard 

for five years before she obtained a teaching 

position at a majority-White suburban school. 

The other White teacher in the study 

sample, Ms. Lincoln, served as a gifted resource 

teacher at South Boulevard from 1979-1998. 

Ms. Lincoln, who described herself as a “South 

Boulevardian,” said, “I loved South Boulevard; 

I hated to leave it. South Boulevard got into my 

blood.” Ms. Lincoln said the students were “all 

neighborhood children, so there was an awful 

lot of free lunches. A very, very, very high 

percentage.”  When asked to compare South 

Boulevard to other EBRP schools, Ms. Lincoln 

said:  “We held our own. We prided ourselves in 

getting as much as we could out of the children. 

We did a lot for our children. We had a student 

council. We had crossing guards. We had Girl 

Scouts and Boy Scouts that serviced the 

school.”  These vastly different stories are 

examples of the powerful forces both for and 

against school desegregation in Baton Rouge. 

In 1972, the federal government passed 

the Emergency School Aid Act, which called for 

the use of magnet programs to desegregate 

schools. EBRP opened its first magnet program 

at Baton Rouge High in 1976. The criteria for 

admission into the academic and arts magnet 

included the following: a minimum 2.5 grade 

average, ability to read on grade-level, interest 

in the program, and parental consent. A middle 

school magnet program was created at Glasgow 

Middle School in 1979 (Staff 1979). The school 

received nearly 1,900 applications—465 from 

Blacks and 1,421 from Whites—for only 750 

seats in the program. 

Because the schools were still racially 

segregated, Federal District Court Judge John 

Parker closed fifteen EBRP schools in 1981 to 

achieve more racially-balanced school 

populations. Judge Parker‟s plan paired 

formerly White and formerly Black schools and 

assigned students to schools based on racial 

quotas. Parents indicated their first, second, 

third, and fourth choice schools, but according 

to a 5 August 1981 article in the Baton Rouge 

Morning Advocate, approximately 30 percent 

did not get their first or second choice school 

(McClain August 5, 1981). Students were 

bussed to their newly-assigned school. That 

year, nineteen percent of the non-Black students 

(approximately 7,000) left the EBRP public 

school system. 

In the context of these system-wide 

changes, South Boulevard became one of two 

dedicated
2
  extended day magnet schools. 

Designed for working parents, the extended day 



30 

 

magnet programs were open from 7:00 a.m. 

until 5:30 p.m. and provided tutoring and 

enrichment activities for students. The school 

system bore all costs associated with the before- 

and after-school care. A 15 August 1981 article 

in the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate explains 

that Judge Parker set target student enrollments 

for these two programs at 60 percent White and 

40 percent Black (McClain August 15, 1981).  

Numerous people who worked at South 

Boulevard during this period participated in this 

study, including four teachers, one 

administrator
,
, and one parent of a student who 

attended South Boulevard. Interview and test 

score data reveal a successful school that 

provided quality before- and after-school 

enrichment programs and a rigorous academic 

program. Linda, a South Boulevard parent, 

recalled that “there was always a waiting list to 

get into the school. So you had to apply and 

hope that you would be one of the ones that got 

in.” Teachers agreed that the program was 

highly valued by the families it served. Ms. 

Brown, a White South Boulevard veteran 

teacher of thirty years, noted that the students 

“treated each other just like siblings because 

they came early in the morning at 7:00, and we 

kept them until 5:30. We did everything but 

bathe „em and put „em to bed, almost.”   

Because no bus transportation was 

provided, parents dropped off their children 

every morning and picked them up every 

afternoon. Ms. Lawson, a White teacher, 

recalled: “You met the parents face-to-face 

daily. So if there was a problem, you had that 

communication on a daily basis.” Ms. Johnson, 

a Black teacher who taught at South Boulevard 

for 18 years, said that the greatest strength of 

South Boulevard during this time period was the 

“cohesiveness of the faculty and their 

willingness to put in the extra time for the 

benefit of the children.”  Ms. Johnson said that 

parents “wanted their children there because of 

the high academic achievement that the students 

experienced.” Thus, South Boulevard has a long 

history of high expectations and student 

achievement. 

None of the staff members recalled what 

the racial ratios were, although they did 

remember that they were required to fulfill a 

race-based quota. Ms. Lawson explained that 

“the purpose of the court order was to 

desegregate, and we did. It was effective. You 

had kids who came from all walks of life. We 

had kids who were neighborhood kids who 

walked to school, and we had kids from the 

Country Club of Louisiana.” Although the 

South Boulevard magnet program was 

successful between 1981 and 1988 in terms of 

desegregation (as shown in Table 5) and in 

providing a quality program valued by students 

and parents, the percentage of non-Blacks began 

to decrease after 1988, which reflects the trend 

in the district student population during the 

same time period.  

 In 1996, a Consent Decree (1966) - a 

ruling by the court to which all parties in the 

desegregation litigation agreed - replaced busing 

with community-based attendance zones that 

allowed most students to attend schools near 

their homes and created 24 new magnet 

programs to attract White students to attend 

majority-Black schools in an effort to achieve 

racial balance. The Consent Decree states that 

magnet programs are “the primary tool for 

desegregating the predominantly Black schools 

in the inner city.” One of the new magnet 

programs was a foreign language immersion 

program at South Boulevard, which began in the 

fall of 1996 with one Spanish immersion 



31 

 

Table 5: Student enrollment at South Boulevard, 1980-1995 

Year 
Total 

Enrollment Black 
% of 
Total 

Non-
Black 

% of 
Total 

1980 195 192 98% 3 2% 

1981 219 144 66% 75 34% 

1982 233 116 50% 117 50% 

1983 254 122 48% 132 52% 

1984 253 121 48% 132 52% 

1985 244 118 48% 126 52% 

1986 278 138 50% 140 50% 

1987 296 144 49% 152 51% 

1988 294 156 53% 138 47% 

1989 288 163 57% 125 43% 

1990 290 164 57% 126 43% 

1991 299 162 54% 137 46% 

1992 283 161 57% 122 43% 

1993 277 168 61% 109 39% 

1994 263 169 64% 94 36% 

1995 279 191 68% 88 32% 

 

kindergarten class. The non-immersion students 

were grandfathered in—that is, they were 

allowed to stay at the school through fifth grade 

even though they did not participate in the 

immersion program. Out of 277 total students in 

1996, 187 were Black (68%) and 90 were non-

Black (32%).  

A French immersion program moved 

from Winbourne Elementary to South 

Boulevard in 2002, making it the only Louisiana 

public school offering French and Spanish 

immersion. In 2002, there were two 

kindergarten classes: one Spanish immersion 

and one French immersion. One French and one 

Spanish immersion class were added each year 

until the immersion program was K-5. Table 6 

shows the school enrollment from 1996 to 2007.  

The immersion program brought about 

notable shifts in the racial composition of the 

teaching staff. As the immersion program grew, 

regular classroom teachers (many of whom were 

Black) were replaced by native-speaking 

immersion teachers. In 1991, there were eight 

White and seven Black teachers. In 1995, there 

were 10 White teachers and 11 Black teachers. 

Of the current 18 teachers in levels K-5 (each 

grade level has one Spanish, one French, and 

one English Language Arts teachers), only two 

are Black, six are Hispanic, and ten are White 

(including six from France and Belgium). Thus, 

one consequence of the implementation of the 

immersion program has been a decrease in 

Black teachers (Karpinski 2006). In 2003, the 

parties involved in the desegregation suit agreed 

to a Final Settlement Agreement (FSA). The 

FSA pared down the number of magnet 

programs to thirteen, including six elementary 

programs. The prescribed enrollment target for 

the dedicated magnet schools—one of which 

was South Boulevard—was 55% Black, 45% 

non-Black. The FSA stated that during the first 

two school years of the four-year term of the



32 

 

Table 6: South Boulevard student enrollment, 1996-2007 

Year 
Total  
K-5 Black 

% of 
Total 

Non-
Black 

% of 
Total 

Free/Red 
Lunch 

1996 268 194 72% 74 28% 59% 

1997 277 187 68% 90 33% 64% 

1998 243 175 72% 68 28% 49% 

1999 240 177 74% 63 26% 53% 

2000 226 178 79% 48 21% 65% 

2001 225 181 80% 44 20% 69% 

2002 242 190 79% 52 22% 65% 

2003 249 200 80% 49 20% 71% 

2004 225 167 74% 58 26% 62% 

2005 231 153 66% 78 34% 65% 

2006 208 138 66% 70 34% 53% 

2007 204 119 58% 85 42% 59% 

 

agreement, if there were insufficient 

applications from either Black or non-Black 

students to fulfill these quotas, “the magnet 

school shall be operated with empty seats 

notwithstanding the existence of a waiting list.” 

Beginning with the third year, the Board would 

be allowed to admit students from the waiting 

list regardless of their race and the subsequent 

effect on the target ratio. 

In 2003, South Boulevard‟s student 

population was 80% Black and 20% non-

Black—a far cry from the 55% Black, 45% non-

Black ratio targeted in the FSA. By 2007, 

enrollment was 59% Black, 41% non-Black. 

Figure 1 compares enrollment trends at South 

Boulevard with the EBRP district as a whole. 

 

Figure 1: Percentage of non-Black enrollment at South Boulevard and in the EBRP district, 1945-

2005 

 
(Data obtained from Louisiana School Directories and Louisiana State Department of 

Education Annual Financial and Statistical Reports.) 

 

 

0 

20 

40 

60 

80 

100 

P
e
rc

e
n

ta
g

e
 o

f 
n

o
n

-b
la

c
k
 

e
n

ro
ll

m
e
n

t 

Year 

South Boulevard EBRP Schools 



33 

 

This level of racial diversity is noteworthy 

considering that it has occurred in the same time 

period during which the overall student 

population of EBRP schools has become 

increasingly Black.  

 

Contemporary Perspectives that Reflect 

Historical Themes 

Current South Boulevard parents, 

students, and teachers shared experiences 

reflective of three themes pertaining to the 

relationship between race and the history of 

education: 1) pride in community schools, 2) the 

importance of a rigorous education, and 3) 

perseverance in obtaining quality education for 

their children. 

Current South Boulevard parents in the 

sample are proud of their school and are highly 

involved in their children‟s education, in both 

formal and informal ways. Teachers and 

administrators described significant parental 

involvement at South Boulevard. Ms. Richard, 

one of only two Black South Boulevard 

teachers, similarly said: “All I have to do is 

make one phone call in my room and I get 

parents in there.” Donald, a Black father and 

firefighter, visits his son‟s classroom frequently: 

“I like that you can come in any time you want 

and pop in the classroom. I stop by all the time 

and just sit in the classroom for one or two 

hours.”   

Parents have become increasingly 

involved since the creation of the PTO in fall 

2005, when a group of five to seven mothers 

created an official parent-school organization to 

ensure the longevity of the program. The newly-

created PTO successfully lobbied the EBRP 

central administrative personnel to continue the 

immersion program at the middle school level. 

In a parent survey drafted and conducted by the 

PTO in March 2006, 114 out of 166 parents that 

they were “interested” or “very interested” in a 

middle school immersion program. The PTO 

then encouraged parents to sign a petition and to 

write letters, send e-mails, and call district 

administrators and school board members to 

lobby for a middle school immersion program. 

In March 2007, the school board approved a 

proposal to continue the immersion program at a 

selected middle school. In addition to its 

advocacy role, the PTO has raised funds to buy 

additional library books, new equipment for a 

computer lab and the playground, and 

miscellaneous items for classroom teachers. 

These fundraising efforts, which included Black 

and White parents, are reminiscent of the ways 

in which Black Southerners financed early 

Black schools with private contributions despite 

paying taxes that were supposed to fund public 

schools (Anderson 1988). 

South Boulevard parents are proud of 

their school; they make sacrifices to get their 

children to school; they raise money to support 

the school. During interviews, I asked parents 

what they tell other people about South 

Boulevard. Tracy, a Black mother of two South 

Boulevard students, said: “I tell people it‟s a 

great, great program. It‟s wonderful. We love 

it.”  When I asked Donald, a Black father, that 

question, he laughed and said: “I tell them that 

they‟re paying for something [private school 

tuition] that our kids get for free that‟s better.” 

Although families live significant distances 

from the school, I argue that the sense of 

community surrounding the school acts as a 

surrogate for the sense of community present in 

former neighborhood schools and in all-Black 

schools prior to desegregation (Hendry and 

Edwards 2009; Jones-Wilson 1981; Siddle 

Walker 1996). 



34 

 

Despite the fact that all parent 

participants were similarly proud of South 

Boulevard, the school is perceived differently in 

Black and non-Black communities. South 

Boulevard, which was an all-Black school 

between 1959 and 1981, has a reputation in the 

Black community as being an excellent school. 

Former Black school board member Patricia 

Haynes-Smith confirmed this reputation when 

she said that South Boulevard “was a good 

school when it was a neighborhood school. 

People who live around there now want to know 

why they can‟t go to that school. It‟s a 

tradition.” South Boulevard teachers concurred 

that academic rigor was particularly important 

to Black parents. School principal Ms. Miller, 

for instance, explained that “young Black 

families know about South Boulevard. And they 

know about the immersion program. And they 

want their kids in it.” South Boulevard does not 

enjoy a similar reputation in the non-Black 

community. While many Blacks know South 

Boulevard is a good school, many non-Blacks 

remain unconvinced that an excellent education 

can be attained in an EBRP public school. 

A second historical theme discussed by 

current South Boulevard parents is the 

importance of a rigorous education. Black and 

non-Black parents in the study sample stressed 

the importance of a rigorous curriculum in their 

decision to send their children to South 

Boulevard. According to Ken, a Black estate 

planner, “People get over the racial issue when 

the degree of excellence is way up there. When 

you create institutions of excellence, everybody 

wants to go to that watering hole. The only way 

you are going to desegregate, today, is…quality. 

Go for excellence at all levels. And people will 

get past their getups.” Tracy explained, “Well, 

especially with foreign language. It‟s the only 

one of its kind around here. So that is a big plus. 

More academics. More challenging. More 

opportunities there.”  Yolanda, a Black mother, 

said that her son Sylvester, a South Boulevard 

student, has “probably gotten ten times the 

advantages” over her older son, who attends a 

non-magnet public school.  

Parents in the sample valued the 

educational quality of the school more than its 

location or condition. When I asked Ken, who 

had been paying $30,000 per year in private 

school tuition before he moved his three 

children to South Boulevard, about South 

Boulevard‟s physical facility, he shrugged and 

said: “We can donate our time and some money. 

We can come paint the bathroom. If the 

principal says, „We need to have a clean-up 

weekend,‟ we‟ll be there. With paintbrushes in 

hand.” Like many poorly funded Black schools 

prior to Brown, South Boulevard provides a 

quality education despite its poor physical 

condition and continues to be a source of pride 

for its students, teachers, and parents. 

A third theme that reflects the history of 

race and education is parents‟ perseverance in 

providing education for their children. 

Numerous Black parents in this study expressed 

frustration regarding the magnet admissions 

process. In EBRP, student race was a factor in 

magnet program admissions between 1981 and 

2006, when the magnet programs were 

obligated to comply with the 55% Black, 45% 

non-Black quotas outlined in the FSA. Students 

fell into one of only two categories: Black and 

non-Black. Beginning in 2007, a socioeconomic 

status quota (55% full-pay lunch, 45% free-

reduced lunch) replaced the racial quota.  

Black parents in the sample complained 

about the unfairness of racial quotas and the 

lottery—used when a magnet program receives 



35 

 

more applications than it has available seats, 

which happens every year at every EBRP 

magnet program. Camille, a Black state 

employee, complained that the quota makes it 

harder for Black students to get in to the magnet 

programs because more Blacks apply than non-

Blacks. She said, “Because of deseg, you now 

have this lottery pick to get into the schools. So 

if you don‟t have a sibling already in that 

school, you play hell trying to get in. My 

coworker here has applied for visual arts 

[magnet] three years in a row and has not been 

able to get her Black male son in. Because they 

don‟t have any openings for Black male 

children.” Anthony felt it was unfair to use race 

as a means to exclude people: “I don‟t think that 

there should be schools that exclude anyone 

because of race.”   

Non-Black parents did not have similar 

complaints or misgivings about the way the 

application process works. This is not surprising 

since for years, non-Blacks have been allowed 

to occupy 45% of the spaces in magnet 

programs—which is significantly more than the 

13% of the total school enrollment they 

currently represent. Magnet programs generally 

have many more Black applicants than non-

Black applicants. At South Boulevard, for 

instance, 51 Black students and 0 non-Black 

students were on the waiting list for the 2006-

2007 school year. Because the quotas privilege 

non-Black children, all the non-Black students 

who applied got in.  

Liz, a White mother with a Master‟s 

degree in mathematics, agreed with Camille that 

the quotas favor non-Black students. She 

explained, “Because there are more Blacks in 

the public school system, they get shut out of 

better programs. There‟s only a certain number 

of slots in the magnet schools, so there‟s more 

competition among the Black people for those 

slots. White people have an easier chance of 

getting into a magnet school, which is unfair to 

Black people.” 

Andrea, a White bookkeeper, similarly 

explained that “if you want to go to South, your 

chances of going there are better if you‟re 

White. If you‟re White, it‟s almost like a step 

right on into the door.”   

Several Black parents also expressed 

confusion and even skepticism regarding the 

lottery for admission into EBRP magnet 

programs. Terrence, a Black firefighter and real 

estate agent, and Camille spoke extensively 

about the lottery. Terrence scoffed and said that 

the “supposed waiting list and a lottery” were “a 

bunch of bull.”  When I asked him how he 

thought his daughter got in, he said, in a 

somewhat humorous tone: “I don‟t know. I was 

real sweet to the lady at the East Baton Rouge 

School office.” Camille lamented, “There‟s 

always a waiting list for the Black female or the 

Black male, but they always have a non-Black 

spot available. And I don‟t understand why. If 

you have that available, why couldn‟t it be made 

open to whomever that wants to get in?” 

These frustrations are reminiscent of 

charges made by the Black community 

regarding the unequal distribution of resources 

in segregated schools. While all parents in the 

study sample agreed that diversity in schools is 

a good goal, some Black parents had a sense of 

unfairness and a distrust of the school system. 

Camille summarized their sentiments when she 

said: “You ought to be able to get into a public 

school because that‟s what the word means: 

„public.‟ It should be open to everyone 

regardless of race.” 

Like members of the Black community 

since emancipation, however, Black parents in 



36 

 

the study exercised self-determination in getting 

their children into South Boulevard, where they 

were confident their children would receive a 

quality education, despite institutional practices 

(like the quotas and the lottery) that sought to 

exclude them. Because several Black South 

Boulevard families do not technically live in 

EBRP, they use a friend‟s or relative‟s address 

on official paperwork so that their children can 

continue to attend South Boulevard. The school 

librarian, who confessed that the school 

administration knows that they should not be 

allowed to attend South Boulevard, explained, 

“We know about that. But we just look the other 

way.” 

Tanecia‟s story of how she had to 

manipulate the system so that her son could get 

into South Boulevard illustrates the complexity 

of race when it collides with quotas and school 

policy. Tanecia is Black and her husband 

Richard is White. Tanecia recounted her 

experience when she applied for her oldest son 

to get into South Boulevard: 

 

When I first applied for Thomas to get 

in, I put that he was Black, because 

I‟m the mom and I‟m writing the 

application. He got denied and I was 

upset. So I called the school and said: 

„Why can‟t he be in the program?,‟ 

and they said: „We‟ve reached our 

quota for Black students. And I said: 

Well, his father is White. Can I put 

White?‟ And they said: „Sure.‟ So I put 

White and he was accepted. I got lucky 

because I‟m married to a White guy. 

What if I wasn‟t married to a White 

guy?   

Thus Tanecia sacrificed part of her own identity 

- on paper, at least - in order to get her son into 

South Boulevard.  

This kind of perseverance and 

improvisation was not necessary among the 

non-Black parents in the study sample—none of 

whom mentioned frustration with the 

admissions process or shared stories of friends 

or family members unable to get their children 

in to magnet programs. Thus, Black and non-

Black parents experience the magnet admissions 

process differently. Black parents feel that the 

system tries to cheat their children out of 

coveted spots in magnet programs, while non-

Black parents almost take it for granted that 

their children will be able to get in to one of 

these programs. Like Black parents during the 

Jim Crow era who were determined to educate 

their children despite a legal system that was set 

against them, Black parents at South Boulevard 

are dedicated to getting their children into good 

schools despite a system they feel treats them 

unfairly. 

  

Conclusion 

South Boulevard has been at the 

intersection of race and education since it first 

opened its doors in 1949. The South Boulevard 

community has undergone numerous layers of 

change, including demographic changes, 

changes in teaching staff, and curricular 

changes. 

The history of South Boulevard illustrates 

several themes central to the history of race and 

education. Although some differences emerged 

in the ways that Black and non-Black parents 

perceived South Boulevard and the magnet 

admissions process, all parents in the study 

sample exhibit behaviors and sentiments that 

have been important to parents throughout 



37 

 

history. First, Black and non-Black parents in 

the study sample take pride in their children‟s 

school and support it with their time, energy, 

and resources. Second, all parents in the study 

valued educational quality more than the 

location or condition of the physical facility. 

They want their children to experience the 

additional challenge of learning a second 

language and are satisfied that their children are 

pushed academically at South Boulevard. Third, 

Black and non-Black parents demonstrated 

perseverance and determination in making sure 

their children receive a quality education. All 

parents in the study sample were proactive in 

choosing what they determined to be the best 

school for their children and found ways to 

make the system work for them and for their 

children. 

 

References 

Ambrose, E. R. 1999. Sarah Towles Reed: 

Teacher and activist. In The Louisiana 

Purchase Bicentennial Series in Louisiana 

History, edited by M. G. Wade, 383-405, 

vol. 18. Lafayette, LA: Center for 

Louisiana Studies. 

Anderson, J. D. 1988. The education of blacks 

in the South, 1860-1935. Chapel Hill, NC: 

University of North Carolina Press. 

Bankston, C. L.and S. L. Caldas 2002. A 

troubled dream: The promise and failure 

of school desegregation in Louisiana. 

Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University 

Press. 

Bell, D. 2004. Silent covenants: Brown v. Board 

of Education and the unfulfilled hopes for 

racial reform. Oxford: Oxford University 

Press. 

Brown, F. 2004. The road to Brown, its leaders, 

and the future. Education and Urban 

Society 36(3): 255-265. 

Butler, J. S. 1974. Black educators in Louisiana: 

A question of survival. The Journal of 

Negro Education 43(1): 9-24. 

Carleton, M. T. 1981. River Capital: An 

illustrated history of Baton Rouge. 

Woodland Hills, CA: Baton Rouge Area 

Chamber of Commerce. 

Cecelski, D. 1994. Along Freedom Road. 

Chapel Hill, NC: University of North 

Carolina Press. 

Consent Decree, U.S. District Court Middle 

District of Louisiana, Civil Action No. 56-

1662-A (1996). 

Cremin, L. A. 1988. American education: The 

metropolitan experience, 1876-1980. New 

York: Harper and Row. 

Crouch, B. A. 2000. Black education in Civil 

War and Reconstruction Louisiana: 

George T. Ruby, the Army, and the 

Freedmen's Bureau. In The African 

American experience in Louisiana, edited 

by C. Vincent, 260-275, vol. 11. Lafayette, 

LA: Center for Louisiana Studies, 

University of Louisiana Lafayette. 

Culver, D. W. 1954. Racial desegregation in 

education in Indiana. The Journal of 

Negro Education 23(3): 296-302. 

Davis et al. v. East Baton Rouge Parish School 

Board, 287 Fd2 380 C.F.R. (1961). 

Davis, D. R. 1999. Crossing over: An oral 

history of the desegregation experience of 

public school personnel in East Baton 

Rouge, Louisiana. Ph.D. diss., Louisiana 

State University. 

Denzin, N. K.and Y. S. Lincoln, eds. 2000. 

Handbook of qualitative research. 

Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage Publications. 

Final Settlement Agreement, U.S. District Court 

Middle District of Louisiana, Civil Action 



38 

 

No. 56-1662-D-M3 (2003). 

Frazier, J. M. 1937. The history of Negro 

education in the parish of East Baton 

Rouge, Louisiana. Master's thesis, 

University of Iowa. 

Gaston, R. W. 1971. Dr. William Bass Hatcher, 

Louisiana educator. Ph.D. diss., Louisiana 

State University. 

Glaser, B.and A. Strauss 1967. Discovery of 

grounded theory. Chicago: Aldine. 

Green v. School Board of New Kent County, 

Virginia, 391 U.S. 430 (1968). 

Hendry, P. M.and J. D. Edwards 2009. Old 

South Baton Rouge: The roots of hope. 

Lafayette, LA: Center for Louisiana 

Studies. 

Jacobs, D. This is Baton Rouge's best high 

school. Baton Rouge Business Report, 

2008, January 15, 28-32. 

Jones-Wilson, F. C. 1981. A traditional model 

of educational excellence: Dunbar High 

School of Little Rock, Arkansas. 

Washington, D.C.: Howard University 

Press. 

Karpinski, C. F. 2006. Bearing the burden of 

desegregation: Black principals and 

Brown. Urban Education 41(3): 237-276. 

Kluger, R. 1975/2004. Simple justice: The 

history of Brown v. Board of Education 

and black America's struggle for equality. 

New York: Vintage Books. 

McClain, R. School assignments reported. 

Morning Advocate, August 5, 1981, B-1. 

McClain, R. Magnet signup deadline Monday. 

Morning Advocate, August 15, 1981, B-1. 

Middleton, E. J. 1984. History of the Louisiana 

Education Association. Washington, D.C.: 

National Education Association. 

Olson Beal, H. K. 2008. Speaking the language 

of desegregation: A case study of South 

Boulevard Foreign Language Academic 

Immersion Magnet. Educational Theory, 

Policy, and Practice. Baton Rouge, LA, 

Louisiana State University. 

Perry, T. 2003. Competing theories of group 

achievement. In Young, gifted, and black: 

Promoting high achievement among 

African-American students, edited by T. 

Perry, C. Steele and A. Hilliard III, 52-86, 

Boston, MA: Beacon Press. 

Reynolds, K. C.and S. L. Schramm 2002. 

Separate sisterhood: Women who shaped 

Southern education in the progressive era. 

New York: Peter Lang. 

Ripley, C. P. 1976. Slaves and freedmen in Civil 

War Louisiana. Baton Rouge, LA: 

Louisiana State University Press. 

Siddle Walker, V. 1996. Their highest potential: 

An African American school community in 

the segregated south. Chapel Hill, NC: 

The University of North Carolina Press. 

Spradley, J. P. 1980. Participant observation. 

New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 

Inc. 

Staff. Huge expansion program set by EBR 

Parish School Board. State Times 

Advocate, 1949, January 1, 16-A. 

Staff. More that [sic] 18,000 school children 

enrolled in EBR. State Times Advocate, 

1949, September 7. 

Staff. First magnet middle school to open. State 

Times Advocate, 1979. 

Stone, F. A. 1992. Public school 

desegregation/redesign: A case study in 

East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. 

Urban Education Reports, Number 14. 

Strauss, A.and J. Corbin 1998. Basics of 

qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: 

Sage Publications. 

Suarez, R. A. 2004. Chronicle of a failure: 



39 

 

Public education in antebellum Louisiana. 

In Antebellum Louisiana, 1830-1860: Life 

and Labor, edited by C. E. De Latte, 146-

155, vol. 4. Lafayette, LA: Center for 

Louisiana Studies. 

Tyack, D. B. 1974. The one best system: A 

history of American urban education. 

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 

Press. 

 

                                                 
1
 I use the terms “Black” and “non-Black” because these are the terms that were used throughout the era of court-ordered 

desegregation in Louisiana. I use “White” when other researchers or data sources use it. 
2
 A dedicated magnet program is a school in which the entire student population participates in the magnet program. 


