NCJ Number
92845
Date Published
1980
Length
32 pages
Annotation
The workshops used by the Community Relations Service (CRS) to facilitate adaptation to the desegregation of Syracuse's (New York) elementary schools in 1977 resulted in the schools establishing human relations teams that helped groups adjust during the desegregation process as well as the developing of plans for addressing the human relations problems identified in the workshops.
Abstract
The first workshop -attended by over 1,000 persons, including 533 school administrators and teachers, 49 parents, and 288 paraprofessionals, secretaries, and custodians -was designed to sensitize participants to broad integration issues, to expose them to the experiences of other cities, and to explain the purpose of the other workshops (three to follow the first). The workshop consisted of a keynote address and a panel discussion. The second workshop, which involved 20 simultaneous workshops (one for each school), was designed to impart the skills needed to begin developing a school human relations plan, to inform the participants about sources to multicultural materials, and to promote interaction among the teams. The main segments consisted of exercises devoted to case studies in crisis prevention and response, value clarification, problemsolving related to disruptive behavior and responses, diagnosing the school climate, and developing a school plan. The third workshop session involved separate workshops at 19 participating schools, with each being conducted by the teams trained in workshop II. CRS expected the teams to use the materials presented in workshop II (although schools were encouraged to modify specific activities to meet their needs) and to begin diagnosing school human relations problems and developing a plan for addressing them. In workshop IV, participants met again in their own schools. The first part of the workshop was devoted to a 3-hour, televised panel presentation on testing and achievement, curriculum, and use of multicultural materials. The program was broadcast over the city's educational television channel, and viewers were requested to call in questions. In the afternoon, the teams continued working on their school plans. The workshops began a process which, according to a majority of school officials subsequently interviewed, increased participants' awareness of desegregation issues, stimulated ideas for schools to make integration work, and spurred the development of desegregation-related school plans for the 1978-79 school year. Uses of the Syracuse model in other cities are described, and the appendixes contain descriptions of workshop exercises.