Racial Identity

At the Sports and Medical Sciences Academy, a magnet school on Hartford (also know as the Sport Sciences Academy) there's trouble. Once again, it may turn out to be not so much the crime as the coverup.

Administrators at a Hartford magnet school, facing state guidelines requiring more white students, changed the designations of at least six biracial students from African American or Hispanic to white in school documents, in some cases without parents' permission.

Eduardo V. Genao, principal of the Sport & Medical Sciences Academy, said officials made the changes only after calling each student's parents to determine whether school records were correct, and only in cases where mistakes had been made.

But the parents of two students who said their classifications were altered told The Courant they were never called and would not have approved the change.

You may be wondering, why? Changing students from black to white? What's the point?

Money.

Genao conceded that he asked teachers to help him identify biracial students and that he called the students to his office. In the course of discussing their racial classifications, he acknowledged, he spoke with them about the school's funding. "I did indicate to the students and the parents how the formula works," he said.

In fact, state guidelines tie the funding of magnet schools that opened before this year to residency, not race. Bill Magnotta, the state Department of Education's magnet school manager, said that to qualify for magnet school funding, schools must draw at least 30 percent of their students from the suburbs - a standard Sport & Medical Sciences Academy meets.

Race becomes a factor, for schools established before this year, in regard to compliance with the Sheff vs. O'Neill school desegregation settlement. It says 28 percent of a magnet school's students must be white in order to count toward reducing racial isolation. With just 89 white students in a population of 400, or 22 percent, Sport & Medical Sciences falls far short.

Genao, who is in his first year at the magnet school and is new to Hartford, said he did not realize the state law linking funding to racial quotas applies only to new schools and not to established schools such as his. He denied, though, that the change in the students' racial classifications was linked to money.

One black parent, one white parent -- what does that make you?

"I think I would remember something like that," Rufus Gartrell said. "I never talked to Brandon about it. My son, he could pass for white, but I've taught my son he's also black. I've taught him to be proud of what he is."

She said she registered her son as black "because we thought for him to be accepted in Hartford it would be better for him and for us for him to be perceived as black."

(In the old days, if you had any black blood in you you were considered black. Look up"quadroon" or "octoroon" in the dictionary some time.)

The school itself looks pretty cool. You can take "Introduction to Sports Law" or "Advanced Sports Marketing", "Sports Journalism and Communication" or "Life Guarding", as well as Algebra and English.

This is Eduardo Genao's first year as principal at SSA. Reading between the lines, I think he may have rubbed some of his faculty the wrong way.

The school would not release a list of names of children whose racial classifications were changed. Genao said Brandon was not among them. But a teacher in the school, who would not let her name be used, said she saw documentation that Brandon's race had been changed.

Genao said that the staff gave him the idea to change the codes for biracial children and that former principals had done the same thing.

But teachers' union President Cathy Carpino said that teachers are outraged and that she asked Superintendent of Schools Robert Henry to investigate.

I think the story here may really be more about school politics than racial politics.

PART 2 -- Black.White

Here's the website.

An article from the Christain Science Monitor.

A review from the Los Angles Times.