Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

Racial/Economic Balance in RHSD High Schools

In recent years while the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District, once the nation’s model for successful desegregation efforts, has become increasingly more segregated along racial lines, the nearby Rock Hill School District (RHSD) has sought to maintain racial balance across the three high schools in the district. These high schools are Northwest High, Rock Hill High, and South Pointe High. Northwest and Rock Hill were joined by South Pointe High in 2005. Prior to South Pointe’s opening, Rock Hill High was known in contrast to Northwest for its lack of adequate resources, staff, and educational support, as well as its higher concentration of low-income students and students of color. However, the opening of South Pointe High necessitated a complete rezoning of the district, proposed by a citizens’ committee, with the goal of producing a previously unseen racial and socioeconomic balance in RHSD’s high schools. In this study, we are using state and district data on student demographics over the past 15 years to investigate this balance by calculating the share of students of color between all three schools, as well as the dissimilarity index between black and white students, white and Hispanic students, and Hispanic and black students. Ultimately, we are investigating whether or not the efforts to bring racial balance to the school district in 2005 were successful, and whether rezoning of the RHSD not only proves that racial balance is both attainable and maintainable, but also offers a potential model for demographically and geographically similar districts to follow.