From Desegregation to Priority Schools

The next major period in the history of Metz and AISD was desegregation, bussing, and the Priority Schools program. AISD implemented desegregation in name only, leading to a federal lawsuit against the district for not complying with Brown v. Board of Education. This first led to one-way bussing, where minority students were bussed to white schools, and then to two-way bussing in 1980, where both white and minority students were bussed. This period is elaborated upon in detail in the previous section of this exhibit.

In 1987, the school board voted to end bussing for elementary students. This marked a shift from efforts to create integrated, diverse schools through bussing to a "neighborhood schools" mindset, where students would attend schools in their own neighborhoods. This led to 16 elementary schools with a student population of minority and low-income students. These schools were designated as "Priority Schools" to which AISD would provide extra staff and funding. However, in Price. v AISD, plaintiffs accused AISD of creating a two-tier, "separate but equal" school system through this program. The court ruled in favor of AISD. Whether or not that was the case, according to Lupe Ramos, AISD never promised what they delivered:

"there were promises about forming these priority schools, where they were going to give us an assistant principal, a counselor, and they promised us a lot of things which ended up not happening..."

Notably, the additional funding allocated to Metz Elementary as part of the priority schools program was not allowed to be used for school maintenance and renovations. As the building continued to deteriorate, the Metz community started to ask how equity could be achieved in a school that was unsafe for students. This led to the next period for Metz Elementary, the fight for a new school.