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By Charmere Gatson Maryland Newsline Wednesday, April 21, 2004 BETHESDA, Md. -- When Amy Scher tells her third-grade class about Ruby Bridges’ triumphant integration of an all-white school in Louisiana in 1960, she can’t help but relate her own school experience in the D.C. suburbs. Scher spent 12 years as a white student in all-white Arlington, Va., public schools. She was 12 years old when the Supreme Court decided the Brown vs. Board of Education desegregation case, and a senior at Washington-Lee High School when “fewer than five” black students started classes during the 1959-'60 school year. “It seems strange now that I thought nothing of the segregated school situation at the time,” said Scher, a Potomac, Md., resident, who now teaches at Bradley Hills Elementary School. “But that’s what I was used to: all-white schools. I knew nothing different.” And that’s what she tells her students. Scher’s experience has brought the school integration story alive in the classroom and has reminded her two daughters, now in their 30s, of her strong desire to treat all individuals as she wants to be treated. “My family has always promoted equality, equal rights and so forth,” said her youngest daughter, University of Minnesota graduate student Deanna Scher, 31. Washington-Lee: Then and Now At Washington-Lee today, blacks comprise about 14 percent of the student population, while Hispanics account for 35 percent and Asians 15 percent, administrators say on the school’s Web site. The white population nears 36 percent of the 1,482 students. But the cultural and linguistic diversity that the school now boasts has its roots in Scher’s senior year.
Five years after the Supreme Court declared separate-but-equal policies unconstitutional, Arlington Public Schools began integrating, officials said. On an early morning in September 1959, four black students showed up for classes at Washington-Lee, said Cheryl Robinson, the county’s supervisor of minority achievement. “It wasn’t a shock to me,” Scher said. “I must have heard that desegregation was going to happen before it actually occurred in our school.” The presence of the black students did not interfere with her studies, Scher said. It was no big deal, she said. Unlike the famous integration uproars Bridges endured upon arrival to an all-white school in New Orleans, the black students at Washington-Lee had a calmer, nonviolent welcome, Scher recalls. “The only memory I have is of this one black boy in my homeroom. He stayed to himself,” Scher said. “No one talked to him, and no one really said anything bad or negative to him.” She said she “did not make any effort” to speak to him, either. She was surprised to see during a recent skimming of her high school yearbook that there appeared to be no black teachers at the time she attended. But she found there were black custodial workers. School officials were unable to verify race of employees from the late 1950s. Scher in 1960 made a “smooth” transition from a segregated early education experience to an integrated college experience. She attended Penn State University for two years, then transferred to Boston University, where she received her bachelor’s degree in education. In 1966, she relocated to California to pursue her master’s degree in education at Stanford University, she said. “I don’t remember having a black teacher in college, but I did see a fair amount of black students,” particularly at Penn State, she said. “I became friends with the ones in my education classes.” In the Classroom Now as a Montgomery County, Md., third-grade teacher, Scher adds her personal story to the national stories of school integration. She tells her students about the times when blacks and whites -- even if they lived near each other -- traveled each day to separate schools, busing, walking or carpooling. But her experience is difficult for some 8-year-olds to digest. "That is very unfair how they treated them [blacks]," said Emma Tatem, 8, a white student in Scher's class.
One of the many minority students in Scher's diverse class, Daniel Goldin, 8, said, “I was like ‘wow’ when I heard about Mrs. Scher’s experience. That’s amazing that it was a white-only school when she went there.” Leigh Fishman, 8, is just glad that today she’s in a diverse school and never had to endure the tensions of racial segregation. “I thought it was really upsetting about what the Brown family and others had to go through, and how they didn’t have all the stuff the whites had,” said Leigh, also a minority. “I like learning about the culture of whites and others, so I’m happy here at this school.” Scher is happy, too. “I want my students to clearly understand how things were before and how they are now and to apply this knowledge to their future lives, so they will treat people as fairly as they can,” she said. In Perspective Looking back, 50 years after the Brown decision, Scher said she’s proud of the “excellent” education she received at a segregated Washington-Lee. Working every day in a diverse elementary school, however, has given her a new perspective on school integration. School diversity isn't yet perfect, she said. "There’s always room for improvement."
Banner photo courtesy Joseph Douglas Collection, Kansas Collection, Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries Copyright © 2004 University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism
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