When John Hutchings started working for Elkhart Community Schools in 1978, integration remained an issue explored in terms of black and white.
But as he watched Elkhart's Hispanic population grow alongside the emergence of other minority and biracial groups, he began to see more of a need to study local diversity in full color.
"We're much more diverse now," said Hutchings, now ECS' director of student services. "Certainly we have changed from what I would consider a school system with two main racial groups to three. There has been a huge change in Hispanic population."
According to figures released in Elkhart Community Schools' Average Daily Membership 2007-08 enrollment report, Hutchings' acknowledgment of an increase in diversity, and increase in Hispanic students, is well-supported.
The white student population in ECS is declining, but at 7,109 students, whites still make up 52.9 percent of the student population. This is more than two times larger than the Hispanic group, second-largest at 3,061 students (22.8 percent). Third is the black student population, numbering 2,156 (16.1 percent). There are also more multi-racial students than ever, at 884 (6.6 percent). The district also includes 178 (1.3 percent) Asian students and 40 American Indian students (0.3 percent).
Around the time Hutchings joined ECS, the school system responded to a complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights about a lack of local integration. That resulted in an agreement on behalf of ECS to redraw school boundaries and develop a way for minority students to voluntarily shift schools within the district.
"It was a significant effort," Hutchings said. "Folks who did that did a really great job because racial balances have held through for a number of years."
The minority enhancement transfer program allowed minorities in a minority-heavy school to transfer to a school of mostly majority students. Likewise, majority students could transfer to schools with a higher minority population.
The transfer option is still in effect, and around 27 students used it for the 2007-08 school year. According to data released by ECS, usage has declined year-to-year from a peak of around 150 in the mid-1980s.
Hutchings said the transfer is open to all racial groups but Hispanics rarely use it, instead opting to stay in Hispanic areas of the city where cultural barriers may be less of an issue.
"Two or three students a year transfer out of a heavily Hispanic school," Hutchings said, noting Monger Elementary (57.3 percent Hispanic) as an example. "It's not a black and white transfer. It's just not been sought out by the Hispanic community at this point."
Hutchings said a satisfactory level of integration has kept Elkhart schools sufficiently mixed over the years, especially since "at the secondary level it's pretty much taken care of."
Both Central and Memorial high schools report populations that are more than half white and black populations within 15 students of each other. Central has 358 Hispanic students and Memorial has 267. Proximity to middle and elementary schools with high Hispanic populations could account for this difference.
As housing prices and patterns in areas of the city change, Hutchings acknowledges the potential for a balance backslide.
"I suppose that potentially there is a problem," Hutchings said. "But in my own experience living and working in Elkhart I have just seen that there's a much greater integration. I just think it's happening. It's a process. It takes time."
Bill Carbonaro, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame, argues that housing patterns continue to pose a danger for segregation within both individual schools and school districts across the country.
"I would say there are big inequalities between districts where there's no progress because of residential segregation," said Carbonaro. "The thing that Brown vs. Board of Education got rid of was systems explicitly set up to divide people by race, but the de facto segregation that arises from residential patterns, the law doesn't really address that."
Numbers released by ECS suggest that for elementaries in central or southern parts of the city, neighborhoods nearest the schools have higher, and growing, concentrations of minority students. One example, Hawthorne Elementary, has 217 black students (34.6 percent), 297 Hispanic students (47.3 percent) and 70 white students (11.1 percent). The school, on the southwest side of the city, has grown by 117 kids since 1995.
In contrast, schools on northern and eastern sides of the city experience another sort of growth, one that could indicate the movement of white families to these areas. Feeser Elementary, for example, has 507 white students (71.9 percent), 51 black students (7.2 percent) and 70 Hispanic students (9.9 percent). The school, located farther north than any other public school in Elkhart, has grown by 109 kids since 1995. Osolo Elementary, on the northeast side, has 391 white students (58.6 percent) and has grown by 76 students since 1995.
"I think it's true in Elkhart like it's true in any city our size or larger," Hutchings said. "Like in many cities housing gets old and people want to move to newer areas. Landlords begin to purchase some of those homes and they become more affordable housing for people with less income."
Housing affordability, Hutchings and Carbonaro said, is obviously a factor in where students go to school. Especially since Elkhart families are getting poorer: Almost 60 percent live in poverty, according to the ECS enrollment report.
"A lot of it is socioeconomic status," Carbonaro said. "Opportunities to get into certain districts are diminished as a result. That's all mirrored in who turns up in our schools."
But with racial makeup being as it is within Elkhart schools, local minority leaders say kids are doing a good job scaling the social -- and cultural -- boundaries their parents continue to have problems with.
"It's easier for children to go through the integration process because once they know the language they feel more comfortable in the culture," said Liliana Quintero, director of The Hispanic/Latino Health Coalition of Elkhart County. "But I think the language barrier makes things very difficult for (parents). They want what's best for their children but sometimes they have meetings with no translator and feel very out of place."