LOWELL — In a meeting that echoed the passionate community outcry over the motion declaring that racism “leads to” versus “is” a public health crisis of almost two years ago, the issues of diversity, equity and inclusion again roiled the City Council chambers Tuesday night.
Mayor Dan Rourke and Councilor Kim Scott’s amended motion to request the School Committee begin the process of vacating a 1987 consent decree failed by a 7-4 majority vote following dozens of speakers who took to the podium in opposition. No members of the public spoke in favor.
Scott, who served two terms as a School Committee member before winning her District 5 council seat, defended her motion, arguing that it was submitted to begin a discussion in light of the transportation challenges and costs of zoned versus neighborhood schools, colloquially referred to as “busing.”
“Considering the busing challenges facing the city today, and the congestion issues it has caused, this is the right time to look at it again,” Scott said. “The large amount that is spent on busing would be far better spent on educating our children within the classrooms. Please let this work begin.”
Her fellow councilors were not persuaded, with several pointing out that the motion procedurally and administratively belonged with the School Committee, a co-equal elected body with oversight of the district’s staff and students.
The 1987 consent decree corrected systemic inequality by desegregating Lowell schools through instituting busing across the city. The decree was in response to a lawsuit filed by the Lowell Hispanic Parents Advisory Council against school officials.
According to the U.S. District Court documents, the court ordered that Lowell Public Schools adopt a Voluntary Lau Compliance Plan, which requires schools to provide supplemental language instruction in public schools for students with limited English proficiency.
Such plans came about thanks to Lau v. Nichols, a 1974 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously decided that the lack of that supplemental language instruction violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Lowell’s Lau plan was approved by the School Committee in 1988 and signed off by the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts in 1989. To bring the district into compliance, the state backstopped the funding to construct new schools that were built in neighborhoods throughout the city, a point former School Committee member Stacey Thompson noted in her public remarks.
“The original lawsuit was the reason why Lowell received such substantial increases in the first place to its funding and was able to expand the district to its size,” she said.
The issue of vacating the consent decree last came before the School Committee during a 2021 meeting. Former committee member Mike Dillon’s motion asked the School Committee to learn what steps were necessary to challenge the late 1980s desegregation consent decree and bring back neighborhood schools.
He said at the time he believed the school district had “come quite a long way” from that time in terms of diversity across city schools, and defying the consent decree might be necessary to put kids in schools closer to home to alleviate transportation and other issues.
Those themes resurfaced in Tuesday night’s meeting, but the public and councilors pushed back hard against that interpretation, including parents like Joseph Boyle, whose son attends the Daley Middle School, and who also described himself as a strong advocate of walkable, neighborhood schools.
“There’s tremendous value in diverse schools,” Boyle said. “If Lowell’s neighborhoods had the diversity for us to operate neighborhood schools that represented our city’s diversity, we wouldn’t need to vacate the consent decree because those schools would be compliant with the consent decree.”
His comments, as were many others, were met by applause and cheers.
Other speakers said that as Lowell’s demographics have changed, the equity challenges have, too.
“Just because we are diverse, does not mean that there is equity,” Mary Wambui said. “Should we be talking about vacating the decree or amplifying our efforts to prioritize the education and enrichment of vulnerable students?”
Many speakers cited statistics that they said spoke to the ongoing need to the vigilance, oversight and intervention offered by the consent decree.
Only 26% of Lowell students in grades 3-8 exceeded expectations in the 2023 MCAS scores. 2020 U.S. Census figures show that the rental population of Lowell is 56%, foreign-born residents are 28% and the poverty rate 17%, two times that of the commonwealth. Lowell is the fourth-most densely populated city in the state with a population density of approximately 8,500 people per square mile.
Tara Hong, a candidate for the 18th Middlesex District state representative seat, addressed the council, arguing that undoing 35 years of work would impact the whole community.
“Equity and access to education are fundamental,” he said. “The consent decree was established to address past inequality and ensure all children have equal opportunity.”
Councilor John Descoteaux made a motion to amend Rourke’s and Scott’s original motion to request Rourke create an ad-hoc subcommittee comprised of School Committee and City Council members. Rourke also serves as the chair of the School Committee.
The motion failed, with Rourke, Scott, Descoteaux and Sokhary Chau in favor. Councilors Paul Ratha Yem, Corey Robinson, Vesna Nuon, Rita Mercier, John Leahy, Wayne Jenness and Erik Gitschier voted no. The measure died.
Mercier said the discussion “opened my eyes.”
“The thing that bothers me the most is that all schools in the city are not equal,” she said. “That you get the better education somewhere else. That is what needs to be corrected. All schools should be the same.”
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