SCHOOL CLEARED OF COMPLAINT; GIFTED PROGRAM TARGET OF PROBE

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- The Cape Girardeau Public School's gifted program does not discriminate against elementary schools with high minority students populations, an investigation has found.

The determination was made by investigators from the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, in Kansas City.

The investigation was prompted by anonymous complaint.

"We had a complaint raised with the Office of Civil Rights which said our gifted program discriminated against some of our elementary schools," said Superintendent Arthur Turner. "The implication was that it was racial discrimination. The charge was false."

According to a letter from Judith E. Banks, regional civil rights director with the Office for Civil Rights, "The evidence does not substantiate the allegation that the district failed to provide a gifted program for elementary schools with large minority populations."

The report says, "The district's gifted programs serve all six of the district's elementary schools, including the schools with large minority student populations. These schools are Jefferson, 17.9 percent minority; May Greene, 55.9 percent minority and Washington, 35.9 percent minority."

Cape Girardeau operates two gifted programs for elementary students: Primary, limited to 2 percent of students in kindergarten through second grade; and Explore, limited to 5 percent of students in grades three through six.

Both programs are housed at the L.J. Schultz Middle School and students are bused to the school once a week.

According to the report, the investigation found "the criteria used to place students in the Primary gifted program relate to aptitude, achievement, parent/teacher rating scales, and teacher nominations.

"The criteria used to place students in the Explore gifted program relate to academic ability, general mental ability, creativity, reasoning, problem solving ability and performance."

"The response indicated they could find no indication of any prohibitive discrimination," Turner said.

"We're talking about negative discrimination. The fact that we have a special program means that you discriminate only some students are in the program," he explained. "But they found no evidence that the discrimination was racial."

"While the charge was baseless," Turner said, "we had to defend the program."

Since the district receives federal money, it is responsible for ensuring compliance with regulations, including one which prohibits discrimination.

Turner said the district spent at least $5,000 worth of personnel time to defend the program.

The superintendent added that the investigation required the district to compile information to prove it was not racially discriminating.

"What they wanted us to do was present evidence that we are non-discriminatory," Turner said. "We had to get some data to prove that we are not guilty."

Data provided by the district shows that students from each of the district's six elementary schools are involved in the gifted program.

During the 1989-90 school year, Alma Schrader had 32 students in the programs, Franklin had 13, Hawthorn had 22, Jefferson had 4, May Greene had 2, and Washington had 10.

Of these students, 6.7 percent were minority students.

For the 1990-91 school year, Alma Schrader had 35 students participating, Franklin had 16, Hawthorn had 17, Jefferson had 2, May Greene had 2 and Washington had 10.

During this year, 8.5 percent of the students were minority.

According to 1988 enrollment figures, the district's minority students represent 17.5 percent of the student body in kindergarten through sixth grade.

"They reached their conclusions by examining data we sent to them," he said.

Investigators requested specific types of information to be used.

"We don't select people based on racial information," Turner said. "So we had to go back and look at what we did through the eyes of racial discrimination. We had to determine how many people were in the pool we selected from and how many were racial minorities."

Turner said the district received information about the complaint in October and has been collecting data since. The letter notifying Turner that the Office for Civil Rights was closing this complaint was received Jan. 25.