Desegregation is still happening even in 2021.
For the first time in 50 years, the state of California has mandated the desegregation of schools – in Sausalito's Marin City School District.
The district's controversial charter school, Willow Creek Academy will merge with its public school counterpart, Bayside Martin Luther King Jr. Academy this fall, according to reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle.
The new, single K-8 school across two campuses will also bridge the area's two different communities.
Physically, Highway 101 divides the zip code into two groups.
One side is Sausalito, a disproportionately white community where the median income is $112,000. The district charter school serves 346 K-8 students.
On the other is Marin City, settled during World War II by Black shipbuilders. The community is 60% people of color with a median income of $45,841. The traditional public school serves 111 K-8 students.
In 2016, a state audit found dramatic discrimination in the district and ordered the schools to desegrate by 2019.
Among the various issues the audit found, Black students were suspended 66 days for every day a white student was, the largest disciplinary disparity in the state, officials said. Test scores also varied wildly between the two schools, and resources had been shifted from Bayside to the charter school for years, the audit confirmed.
At Bayside MLK, 68% of families are considered low-income, compared with 41% at Willow Creek.
But creating a single school out of the two separate communities was an uphill battle. Historically, Marin County is one of the most segregated in the Bay Area despite its reputation for liberal politics. The majority of the county is wealthy and white, with small enclaves of people of color.
In 2019, then Attorney General Xavier Becerra ordered the district to desegregate.
The district had several years to complete the process, but finished the merger in two.
The last year of the pandemic and the events post-George Floyd pushed the district to move forward with the desegregation. "The pandemic really doubled down on the 'why,'" said Terena Mares, county Office of Education deputy superintendent, who has overseen the troubled district for years. "It was a baptism into the real crisis behind the social justice and equity issues that have plagued that district and community."
