By Audrey Spalding / news@columbiamissourian.com

The issue of race

Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that race may no longer be the deciding factor used to determine which public school a child attends. The court did not say that considering a student’s race was unconstitutional.

The ruling itself will not change the way the Columbia Public School District draws school boundaries; the district has not in recent memory used race as the deciding factor.

However, Don Ludwig, who chairs the district committees that draw school boundaries, said the committees will no longer consider race at all in their part of the boundary redrawing process.

With a new elementary school set to open in the fall of 2009 and a new high school coming in the fall of 2010, boundaries will change in some parts of the Columbia district. At least seven elementary schools and all of the middle, junior high and high schools will be affected.

Still, the racial composition of a school’s student body is important to the district, as are other factors such as socioeconomic status and gender. Teachers and administrators say students need to learn how to interact with classmates who are different from them.

Schools Superintendent Phyllis Chase said the district is responsible for teaching students more than academics, which is why classroom diversity is important.

“We educate them to be successful in this world,” Chase said, adding that classroom diversity is not an arbitrary goal. “We don’t do it for its own sake — it’s done for a reason. It’s done for student success.”