Defendants' Response to Plaintiffs' First Request for Admissions Dated 9/20/90

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CV 89-0360977S 

MILO SHEFF, et al # (n\(C\\\! "||| SUPERIOR COURT 
(ES aol \\\ J.D. HARTFORD/NEW 

Plaintiffs RI) \\\ NEW BRITAIN AT HARTFORD 

WILLIAM A. O'NEILL, et al 

Defendants DECEMBER 3, 1990 

DEFENDANTS ' RESPONSE TO 
PLAINTIFFS' FIRST REQUEST FOR ADMISSIONS DATED 9/20/90 
  

  

For their response to Plaintiffs' Request for Admissions 

dated September 20, 1990, the defendants offer the following: 

1. Although blacks comprise only 12.1% of Connecticut's 

school-age population, Hispanics only 8.5%, and children in 

families below the United States Department of Agriculture's 

official "poverty line" only 9.7% in 1986, these groups 

comprised, as of 1987-88, 44.9%, 44.9% and 51.4% respectively of 

the school-age population of the Hartford school district. The 

percentage of black and Hispanic (hereafter "minority")students 

enrolled in the Hartford city schools has been increasing since 

1981 at an average annual rate of 1.5%. 

RESPONSE: 

  
 



  

  
  

    

Defendants lack sufficient information or knowledge upon which to 

admit or deny this request. Defendants have made reasonable 

inquiry into this matter by asking plaintiffs to provide 

defendants with the specific source of the information contained 

in this request. Plaintiffs have not yet provided this 

information. 

2. Hartford schoolchildren, on average, perform at levels 

significantly below suburban schoolchildren on statewide Mastery 

Tests. For example, in 1988, 34% (or 1 in 3) of all suburban 

sixth graders score at or above the "mastery benchmark" for 

reading, yet only 4% (or 1 in 25) of Hartford schoolchildren meet 

that standard. While 74% of all suburban sixth graders exceed 

the remedial benchmark on the test of reading skills, no more 

than 41% of Hartford schoolchildren meet this test of "essential 

grade-level skills." In other words, fifty-nine percent of 

Hartford sixth graders are reading below the State remedial 

level. 

RESPONSE: 

Defendants lack sufficient information or knowledge upon which to 

admit or deny this request. Defendants have made reasonable 

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inquiry into this matter by asking plaintiffs to provide 

defendants with the specific source of the information contained 

in this request. Plaintiffs have not yet provided this 

information. 

3. Improved integration of children by race, ethnicity and 

economic status is likely to have positive social benefits. 

RESPONSE: 

Admit that in the opinion of the named defendants the integration 

of children by race, ethnicity, and economic status is likely to 

have social benefits in the long run. 

4. Improved integration of children by race, ethnicity and 

economic status is likely to have positive educational benefits. 

RESPONSE: 

Admit that in the opinion of the named defendants the integration 

of children by race, ethnicity, and economic status is likely to 

confer some forms of positive educational benefit on some 

children. However, integration of children by race, ethnicity, 

and economic status is likely tc have no effect on some children. 

  

 



      

The degree to which integration of children by race, ethnicity, 

and economic status is likely to confer positive educational 

benefits on children as a whole is unknown. 

5. In 1965, the Hartford Board of Education and the City Council 

hired educational consultants from the Harvard School of 

Education who concluded: (i) the low educational achievement in 

the Hartford schools was closely correlated with a high level of 

poverty among the student population; (ii) that racial and 

ethnic segregation caused educational damage to minority 

children; and (iii) that a plan should be adopted, with 

substantial redistricting and interdistrict transfers funded by 

the state, to place poor and minority children in suburban 

schools. The defendants or their predecessors were made aware of 

these conclusions in or about 1965. 

RESPONSE: 

Admit only insofar as this request is consistent with the rest of 

the Harvard Study which speaks for itself and must be read as a 

whole and insofar as it suggests that at least some of the 

defendants' predecessors were made aware of the report in or 

about 1965, otherwise denied. 

  
 



  
    

6. Neither the defendants nor their predecessors recommended 

that the Legislature adopt legislation to invest the State Board 

of Education with the authority to direct full integration of 

local schools. 

RESPONSE: 

OBJECTION: The request is unduly vague in that the defendants 

are unable to ascertain what the plaintiffs mean by the term 

"authority to direct full integration of local schools". As the 

defendants understand this term, the paragraph must be denied in 

that some of the defendants' predecessors successfully urged the 

General Assembly to adopt Connecticut General Statutes Sections 

10-226a to 10-226e. 

7. In 1966, the Committee of Greater Hartford Superintendents 

proposed to seek a federal grant to fund a regional educational 

advisory board and various regional programs, one of whose chief 

aims would be the the elimination of school segregation within 

the metropolitan region. 

RESPONSE: 

  

  
 



      

Defendants lack sufficient information or knowledge upon which to 

admit or deny this request. Defendants have made reasonable 

inquiry into this matter by asking plaintiffs to provide 

defendants with the specific source of the information contained 

in this request. Plaintiffs have not yet provided this 

information. 

8. In 1969, the Superintendent of the Hartford School District 

called for a massive expansion of "Project Concern," a pilot 

program begun in 1967 which bused several hundred black and 

Hispanic children from Hartford to adjacent suburban schools. 

The Superintendent argued that without a program involving some 

5000 students -- one quarter of Hartford's minority student 

population -- the City of Hartford could neither stop white 

citizens from fleeing Hartford to suburban schools nor provide 

quality education for those students who remained. 

RESPONSE: 

Defendants lack sufficient information or knowledge upon which to 

admit or deny this request. Defendants have made reasonable 

inquiry into this matter by asking plaintiffs to provide 

defendants with the specific source of the information contained 

  

 



  

  
  

in this request. Plaintiffs have not yet provided this 

information. 

9. The school finance system in effect prior to the institution 

of the Horton v. Meskill litigation in 1973 supported local 
  

control over school districts. 

RESPONSE: 

Admit only that the school finance system in effect prior to the 

institution of the Horton v. Meskill litigation in 1973 was 
  

designed to accommodate the system of local control over school 

districts which was then in place. Deny any implication that 

the school financing system was a reason for the existence of the 

system of local control. 

10. One of the legislative goals in the revised guaranteed tax 

based formulas for distributing state educational aid to towns in] 

compliance with Horton v. Meskill was to continue supporting 
  

local control over school districts. 

RESPONSE: 

  

  

  

 



    
  

  

Admit that local control over school systems has always been 

considered a component of quality education and that the 

Guaranteed Tax Base Formula was designed to accommodate the 

system of local control which was then in place. Otherwise 

denied. 

11. Local control over school districts is not significantly 

diminished today from what it was before 1973 except in those few 

instances where a district is out of compliance with the 

statutory racial balance or minimum expenditure requirements. 

RESPONSE: 

Admit in part and deny in part. Local control over school 

districts remains, as it has always been, a critical component of 

quality education. Deny that the State has in any way abdicated 

its responsibility so that local school districts do not live up 

to all State standards for education. Categorically deny that 

State supervision of school districts has been limited to the 

enforcement of statutory racial balance and minimum expenditure 

requirements. 

  
 



  

  

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12. Throughout the 20th century, the defendants or their 

predecessors have authorized local school districts within the 

Hartford area to transport schoolchildren across school district 

and town lines for educational reasons. 

RESPONSE: Admit only that the state has authorized local school 

districts to carry out their responsibilities for children within 

their jurisdiction by placing some of those children in 

facilities which may be outside the geographic boundaries of 

those school districts for specific purposes and with parental 

consent. Furthermore admit that the State has permitted parents 

to enroll their children in certain specialized schools outside 

the geographic boundaries of the school district in which they 

reside. Otherwise the request is denied. 

13. Throughout the 20th century, there have been several 

regional school districts comprised of two or more towns. 

RESPONSE: 

Admit. 

  

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14. Throughout the 20th century, there have been several public, 

vocational secondary schools that enroll students from many 

towns. 

RESPONSE: 

Admit, that there have been such schools at various times 

throughout the 20th century. 

FOR THE DEFENDANTS 

CLARINE NARDI RIDDLE 

ATTORNEY GENERAL 
Fr o%} 2 

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By: : A 

  

  

Johft R. Whelan 
Asgistant Attorney General 
1Y0 Sherman Street 
artford, Connecticut 06105 

Telephone: 566-7140 
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Diane W. Whitney 
Assistant Attorney Genefal 
110 Sherman Street 
Hartford, Connecticut 06105 
Telephone: 566-3696 

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CERTIFICATION   

This is to certify that a copy of the foregoing was mailed, 

postage prepaid on December 3, 1990 to the following counsel or 

record: 

John Brittain 

University of Connecticut 
School of Law 

65 Elizabeth Street 

Hartford, CT 06105 

Wilfred Rodriguez 
Hispanic Advocacy Project 
Neighborhood Legal Services 
1229 Albany Avenue 
Hartford, CT 06112 

Philip Tegeler 
Martha Stone 

Connecticut Civil Liberties Union 
32 Grand Street 

Hartford, CT 06106 

Wesley W. Horton 
Mollier, Horton & Fineberg, P.C. 

90 Gillett Street 
Hartford, CT 06105 

Jenny Rivera, Esq. 
Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, Inc. 
99 Hudson Street 
14th Floor 
New York, NY 10013 

Julius L. Chambers 

Marianne Lado, Esq. 

Ronald Ellis, Esq. 

—ik L 

  
  

  

 



  

    

    

NAACP Legal Defense Fund and 
Educational Fund, Inc. 
99 Hudson Street 
New York, NY 10013 

John A. Powell 

Helen Hershkoff 

American Civil Liberties Union 

132 West 43rd Street 
New York, NY 10036 ; 

yl J Hid 
Johfi' R. Whelan 
Assistant Attorney General 

  

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