Closing Doors: Race and Opportunity in St. Louis Schools
Decisions about where to build or close a school are not just responses to demographic change. They are drivers of it. A school bus in suburban St. Louis County (Thomas Hawk/Flickr)
In early December, the St. Louis Superintendent of Schools announced plans to permanently close six elementary schools, one middle school, and four high schools (one of which is becoming a middle school). Of the eleven schools on the chopping block, seven are north of the notorious âDelmar Divideââa hard boundary between white and black St. Louis that has held fast since the first half of the twentieth century. African Americans make up just under half (46.4 percent) of the cityâs population (based on the latest five-year American Community Survey), but they account for 91.4 percent of the population north of Delmar. Among the proposed closures is Sumner High School, which at its founding