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September in April

Description: Evening Compass special. In-studio operators take phone calls from parents with questions about school assignments and busing for the next school year. Ed Baumeister gives the answers to several true-or-false questions regarding the state plan to achieve racial balance in Boston schools. Judy Stoia gives statistics for the maximum travel distance of students and the racial makeup of schools in each elementary and intermediate school district. Paul deGive reports on a plan proposed by the Boston School Department to hire aids to help care for children and locate parents in case of sickness or family emergency. Baumeister and Pam Bullard (Boston Herald American) interview John Coakley (Boston School Department) and Dr. Charles Glenn (Massachusetts State Department of Education) about implementation of the racial balance plan. Both men respond to questions about the busing of kindergarten students. Judy Stoia explains the term geocode. Stoia and Bob Murray (Boston School Department) give on-air answers to some of the most common questions received by the operators. In studio Bullard, Baumeister and Dr. John Finger of Rhode Island College discuss plan developed to integrate schools. WGBH reporter and Bob Murray have question-and-answer session with questions from callers. Joan Buckley, representative from Boston Teachers Union, discusses plan for teachers with Bullard and Baumeister.
0:02:11: Visual: Introduction to A Compass Special: September in April, a special broadcast concerning the state racial balance plan for the Boston schools. Ed Baumeister is in the studio, along with several volunteers covering the phones. Baumeister introduces the program as informational, designed to answer parents' questions about the plan and its implementation. Baumeister gives out a number for parents to call to reach volunteers in the studio. Baumeister provides true/false answers to basic questions about the plan. Questions touch on the reimbursement of transportation costs, general travel distances for students of various ages and numbers of white and non-white students to be bused. 0:06:08: V: Paul deGive reports on parents who worry about being able to reach their child at a distant school in the case of sickness or emergency. He reports that the Boston School Department will propose a plan to hire transitional aids at each school to contact parents and to care for children in an emergency. 0:09:15: V: Baumeister encourages parents to call studio for information. Volunteers answer the phones. 0:09:55: Report on the Boston elementary school districts under the racial balance plan. Narrator describes the standardization of grade structure in elementary schools and the changes to various elementary school districts. The districts are as follows: Hennigan Kennedy, Bacon Dearborn, Tobin Farragut, Washington Park, Sumner-Conley, Tileston Chittick Greenwood, Lee, Murphy, Marshall Dever Mason, Mendell-Parkman, Paine-Audobon, Milmore, Prince, Faneuil, Lincoln Quincy, Hurley-Bates, Carter, Eliot, South Boston, Hyde Park, Cannon, Ohrenburger, Parker Longfellow. V: Shot of a map of Boston's elementary school districts. Narrator gives information for each district, including district boundaries, names of schools within the district, maximum travel distance for any student in the district and projected non-white enrollment for each school in the district. A map of each district is shown as the narrator reads the information for that district. 0:20:11: V: Judy Stoia encourages parents to call the studio for information concerning their child's school assignment. Shots of telephone volunteers. Stoia mentions that the volunteers are from the Citywide Education Coalition, the Teachers Union and the Boston School Department. Stoia talks to volunteer Lee Grant and explains the term "geocode." Stoia talks to volunteer Scott Campbell about what kind of information he can give to parents over the phone. 0:23:30: V: Baumeister introduces Pam Bullard (Boston Herald American) and John Coakley (Education Planning Center of the Boston School Department). Baumeister refers to Coakley as the man charged with making the racial balance plan work. Coakley refutes the claim that he is in charge of the plan, but discusses preparation for implementation of the plan. Baumeister asks Coakley if the School Department has any flexibility in implementing the plan. Bullard asks Coakley to respond to parental complaints about kindergarten assignments. Bullard presses kindergarten issue, asking if kindergarten children will be bused to the Martha Baker School or to kindergarten centers. Coakley summarizes School Department efforts to minimize busing of kindergarten students and cites the inadequacies of state plan concerning kindergarten students. Baumeister asks Coakley how he would change plan if he could. Coakley cites preliminary plans for integration by the Boston School Department and the Boston School Committee. Coakley says these plans were never developed. Baumeister thanks Coakley. 0:33:27: V: Baumeister provides answers to more true/false questions about the racial balance plan. Questions touch on the following issues: state reimbursement for travel under the desegregation plan, reimbursement of MBTA travel under the plan, major thoroughfares as school district boundaries, classification of Spanish-speaking students, overcrowding of Boston schools. 0:35:14: Report on intermediate school districts under the racial balance plan. Narrator talks about the redistricting of intermediate schools under the plan. Narrator gives the following information for each district: district boundaries, maximum travel distance for any student in the district and percentage of non-white students within each intermediate district school. Narrator reads the information for each district over a map of that district and a shot of the district school. The districts follow: Cleveland, Curley, Dearborn, Edison, Gavin, Holmes, Irving, King, Lewenberg, Lewis, Mackey, McCormack, Michelangelo, Roosevelt, Shaw, Taft, Thompson, Timilty, Wilson. V: Shot of a map of Boston's intermediate school districts. 0:44:41: V: An in-studio reporter asks a volunteer named Fran to describe the phone calls she has received. The reporter addresses a specific situation concerning the placement of 6th grade students in Hyde Park. 0:46:31: V: Baumeister and Bullard interview Dr. Charles Glenn (Office of Equal Education Opportunity of the State Department of Education). Baumeister asks Glenn how the plan determines which children will be bused at the high school level. Bullard asks Glenn about the busing of kindergarten students under the state plan. Glenn explains the intricacies of the plan and its implementation. Baumeister asks Glenn why the state plan to desegregate schools is better than any put forth by the Boston School Committee. Glenn explains that the state desegregation plan goes as far as it can under state law. Bullard questions Glenn about hurried implementation of the racial balance plan, and if the communities involved will be adequately prepared. Glenn responds that the plan has been implemented as well as can be expected in the time given. 0:55:15: V: Baumeister provides answers to more true/false questions. Questions touch on the following issues: definition of non-white students, school assignments and school assignment changes, Massachusetts state racial imbalance regulations, teacher assignments. 0:56:49: V: Stoia and Bob Murray (Education Planning Center of the Boston School Department) answer the most difficult questions received by phone volunteers. Questions involve travel distance within a school district, whether Dr. Glenn lives in Boston, the assignment of students in sub-system schools (Trotter school, Lewis school and Copley High School), and the assignment of seniors in the high schools.
Collection: Evening Compass, The
Date Created: 04/22/1974

September in July

Description: Evening Compass special features updates and information on the court-ordered busing for integration of Boston schools. Opens with footage of Racial Harmony Now Committee in WGBH studio. Ed Baumeister introduces news topics and gives a brief history of civil rights in Boston and segregation facts. Racial Harmony Now Committee holds an in-studio meeting to discuss community involvement in busing, school integration and education. Roy Covell (Boston Police Department) reports on police efforts to ensure the safety of students. John Kerrigan discusses his opposition to busing in Boston. John Kerrigan (Chairman, Boston School Committee) and Kathleen Sullivan (Boston School Committee) discuss the court order by Judge Garrity and the implementation of the state plan to integrate Boston schools in September. Greg Pilkington reports on the on-going hearings to determine a long-term remedy for integrating Boston schools. Eric Van Loon (lawyer for the plaintiffs, Morgan v. Hennigan) comments on the court ruling and the on-going hearings. Judy Stoia reports on MBTA proposals to cover busing needs. Members of the Citywide Education Coalition are in the studio to answer calls from parents and give information on neighborhood groups working with schools on the transition to the state racial balance plan.
0:45:53: Visual: Introduction to Compass Weekly: September in July, a special broadcast on the court-ordered plan to achieve racial balance in Boston schools. Parents and concerned citizens are in the studio to talk about how parents can get involved in the schools. Ed Baumeister explains that the show will give an update on the court order, report on reaction to the order and provide information on neighborhood groups working with schools on the transition to the court-ordered plan. Volunteers from the Citywide Education Coalition are in the studio to answer phone calls from parents, and to give them information on groups in their neighborhoods. 0:48:33: Baumeister gives a brief history of civil rights in Boston. Baumeister says that Boston was a center in the movements for racial justice and public education in the nineteenth century; that Boston had a reputation as a "liberal" city with a good civil rights record in the twentieth century. V: Shots of Post Office Square; of the old Public Latin School; of a local park; of mixed race schoolchildren. Baumeister says that African Americans have played a significant role in the history of Boston and the nation; that Boston was found to have been segregating its schools in the 1960s. Baumeister reports that African Americans live in the city of Boston while the suburbs of Boston are primarily white. Baumeister notes that a federal court declared in 1974 that the city's schools were deliberately segregated. Baumeister notes that the Boston School Committee has been fighting the state's Racial Imbalance Act since 1965; that the decision by Judge Garrity was delivered 15 months after the start of the Morgan v. Hennigan trial. V: Shots of gravestones in historic cemetery; of a plaque commemorating Boston Massacre; of the Robert Gould Shaw memorial). Panoramic shots of the Boston skyline. 0:53:41: V: Judy Stoia sits in the studio with the Education Committee from Racial Harmony Now, a Dorchester group working to ease the transition into the racial balance plan. She is quiet while they hold a meeting: one member mentions the efforts of Chuck Williams (teacher at South Boston High School) to further communication between students at South Boston High School and Girls' High School; another member talks about expanding efforts to go door-to-door in Dorchester to talk about the advantages of school integration; another member talks about the need to focus on education instead of race; the group's Youth Committee has made efforts to bring African American and white students together; the second member suggests that the group sponsor a gathering of parents at the YMCA; another member makes additional suggestions to ease the transition for students who will be bused to new schools. 0:59:54: V: Stoia talks to Roy Covell (Boston Police Department) about the police department's efforts to work with community groups and to create a community task force. He says that the police department's top priority is the safe transport of students to and from the schools. A member of the Racial Harmony Now group asks Covell about traffic patterns around the schools and crosswalks for schoolchildren. 1:04:09: V: Ed Baumeister interviews Kathleen Sullivan (Boston School Committee) and John Kerrigan (Chairman, Boston School Committee). Baumeister asks Kerrigan about the Committee's efforts to appeal the federal court decision. Kerrigan talks about his visit to Senators Kennedy and Brooke in Washington D.C.; he says that the decision places an "unfair burden" on the city of Boston. Sullivan advocates a metropolitan plan to integrate schools in the city and the suburbs. Bullard asks about an alternative busing plan presented by the School Committee to the court. Sullivan and Kerrigan defend the School Committee's record on school integration. Bullard asks them about the Lee School District and feeder patterns to Boston High Schools. Kerrigan talks about the problems of "white flight" and crime at English High School. Baumeister asks if School Committee will assume a leadership role in the coming school year; Kerrigan responds that the School Committee will assume leadership on safety issues but that he will not encourage parents to allow their children to be bused under the state plan. 1:22:30: V: Members of Racial Harmony Now discuss negative media coverage of the school integration issue. One member suggests organizing gatherings of white and black families whose children will be attending school together. Another member suggests that the gatherings focus on how to improve the schools. Several members mention interracial gatherings between Roxbury and South Boston parents at Freedom House. 1:27:34: V: Baumeister encourages parents to call the studio to find out about neighborhood groups working with schools on the transition to the racial balance plan. Shots of phone operators and the members of Racial Harmony Now in the studio. 1:28:50: V: Greg Pilkington reports on latest hearings held by Judge Garrity in Federal Court to determine a long-term integration remedy for the Boston schools: Garrity admitted the Boston Teachers' Union and the Administrators' Union as parties to the suit with limited participation; the Home and School Association was refused as a party to the suit, but might appear later as a friend of the court; Judge Garrity refused the Boston School Committee's attempts to have the City of Boston named as co-defendant in the case. 1:31:38: V: Baumeister encourages parents to call the studio. Baumeister talks to Eric Van Loon (attorney for plaintiffs, Morgan v. Hennigan). Van Loon says that a metropolitan busing plan is impossible until the Supreme Court decides the Detroit school desegregation case (Milliken v. Bradley). Baumeister asks if the plaintiffs would support a metropolitan integration plan in Boston. Pilkington asks Van Loon about the court hearings for a long-term integration remedy: Van Loon advocates the recruiting of African American teachers and administrators; Van Loon says the plaintiffs would support modification of the state plan, or a new plan, if the result were a greater number of integrated schools in Boston. 1:40:26: V: Stoia reports on new bus routes for Boston schoolchildren under the state Racial Balance plan: school opening times will be staggered so that the MBTA can use buses on more than one route; MBTA general manager Joseph Kelly says that there is little time to arrange for busing by private contractors; the state pays transportation costs for students bused over 1.5 miles; the city pays for students bused under 1.5 miles; exact bus routes are not yet available. 1:42:09: V: Baumeister sits in the studio with Racial Harmony Now. He encourages parents to contact the Citywide Education Coalition. Baumeister signs off and the credits roll.
Collection: Evening Compass, The
Date Created: 07/09/1974

Tactical Patrol Force

Description: Interview with two members of Boston Police Tactical Patrol Force (TPF), explaining their tactics in making arrests, use of force, countering resistance.
Collection: Evening Compass, The
Date Created: 09/11/1975

White Timilty mayoral debate, Part 2

Description: WEEI reporters Mike Ludlum and Les Woodruff are the moderate a portion of 1975 Boston mayoral debate in WEEI studio between incumbent Mayor Kevin White and Senator Joseph Timilty. Timilty accuses the White administration of fiscal irresponsibility. White defends his administration's accomplishments, citing building projects to provide new facilities for the city's neighborhoods. Both candidates comment on "white flight" from the city and the state of the Boston school system; public facilities.Tape ends during White's closing statement.
10:13:52: Recording begins in mid-speech. Visual: Joseph Timilty, Kevin White and 2 moderators sit at a table in the WEEI studios. Moderators are Les Woodruff and Mike Ludlum from WEEI.) Timilty questions the White administration's ability to deliver the economic reform necessary to attract new industry to the city. 10:14:28: V: Woodruff asks Timilty how he would handle economic reform. Timilty responds that he would push for a broadening of the city's tax base; that he would look to reform city programs, citing a need for reform in the Little City Hall Program; that he would make budget cuts; that he would target urban renewal through neighborhood-based community development corporations and push for growth in the city's neighborhoods . 10:17:00: V: Ludlum asks White to address the issues raised by Timilty. White asks Timilty to explain an earlier accusation regarding high percentage rates paid by the city on its bonds. White defends his administration's record on reducing unemployment and attracting industry to the city. He cites his accomplishments in the areas of welfare and the city budget. White again asks Timilty about percentage rates on bonds. 10:19:00: V: Timilty responds that the city's debt has increased 176% during White's tenure as mayor. He mentions high interest payments paid by the city. Timilty contests White's claim of responsibility for the transfer of welfare costs from the city to the state, and claims that real estate taxes have increased 67% under White. Timilty says that credit for stabilizing the tax rate should go to the state legislature, which increased funds for the city. White taps his pen against the table, looking frustrated. 10:20:11: V: Ludlum says that White deserves a chance to respond. White returns to the question of the bond percentage rate. Timilty responds that Boston probably pays 4%. A heated exchange ensues concerning the bond market and the percentage rates paid by the city of Boston. Timilty again claims that Boston pays rates that are too high, and that the city has amassed a dangerous amount of debt. White contends that he has saved taxpayer money by raising the bond rate; White says that he has spent bonded monies on increased services and growth for the neighborhoods. White asks if Timilty supports these neighborhood projects. 10:23:08: V: Timilty says that fiscal responsibility is important. He accuses White of overspending on projects that have made little difference to the neighborhoods. Timilty says that White's spending has decreased the city's rating on the bond market, and that the city is in fiscal jeopardy. 10:24:03: V: Ludlum interrupts Timilty to let White respond. White asks Timilty if he agrees that bonded monies are needed for new construction projects. Timilty responds that bonded monies are needed, but too much debt puts the city in jeopardy. White says the building projects were sorely needed by the neighborhoods, and bonding was necessary to get the money. Timilty counters that the neighborhoods need a reduction in the crime rate more than they need new buildings. 10:26:05: V: Woodruff invites the candidates to address the issues of decreasing white enrollment in schools, decreasing white population in the city, the viablility of the public schools and contract negotiations with teachers. White says that ethnic diversity is important for the city, but he recognizes that some citizens fear the growing minority population, and adds that a low tax-rate might help to keep these people from moving out of the city. Timilty interrupts and asks what the tax-rate has to do with the school system. White defends himself by saying that a low tax-rate and good city amenities prevent "white flight" and keep white children in the school system. White adds that further improvements to the schools will attract more white students. He cites Charlestown as an example of a neighborhood with a stable white population and B.C. High as an example of a good school attracting white students to the city. White concludes by saying that the school system needs to improve. 10:30:03: V: Woodruff sums up White's position and invites Timilty to respond. Timilty says there has been little effort to improve the public schools. He says that families are eager to move out of the city because of bad schools, the high cost of living, and high property taxes. He proposes a plan for magnet schools in the city which is more fully developed than the one in place. 10:32:16: V: Ludlum poses a series of questions and demands brief answers from the candidates. Moderator asks about the issues that strike a chord with the voters. White's answer is the stabilization of the tax rate. Timilty's answer is a responsive city government. Ludlum asks each candidate the difference between him and his opponent. White's answer is experience and performance. Timilty answers that he has a plan for the city. 10:34:25: V: Mayor White gives his closing statement. He cites his performance as mayor, his efforts to stabilize the tax rate, his fight against valuation, his efforts to build facilities for the neighborhoods, and to appoint competent people. He mentions three critical issues: tax reform, healing racial wounds, and improving education.
Collection: Evening Compass, The
Date Created: 10/23/1975

White Timilty mayoral debate, Part 3

Description: Senator Joseph Timilty's closing statement in 1975 mayoral race debate against current mayor Kevin White, filmed in WEEI studio. Radio broadcast closed by announcer Mike Ludlum. Following close of broadcast is silent footage of participants and others shaking hands conversing in studio. Reel 3 of 3.
Collection: Evening Compass, The
Date Created: 10/23/1975