Administrative files of the Racine school superintendent spanning the period, 1923 to 1985, and encompassing the terms of six superintendents. Focus of the records is on planning, policy making, program development, and evaluation. The bulk of the records, from 1967 to 1982, reflect upheaval and reexamination of educational concerns with the major topical areas of desegregation, busing, teacher contract disputes, litigation, alternative and magnet schools, bilingual education, flexible scheduling, school dropouts, gifted student programs, Headstart, and special education. Although the files support inquiry into many areas of interest, they are not complete and represent a scattered sampling of educational approaches taken by the Racine school district towards a variety of pressing issues. There is breadth of subject matter, but frequently not much depth in any given subject.
There are, however, notable exceptions. The tenure of C. Richard Nelson (1970-1982) as superintendent closely coincides with the bulk of the materials. Nelson actively led public discussion on desegregation issues by appearing on local television and radio talk shows in the mid 1970's. Materials relating to Racine's voluntary efforts towards school desegregation form a collection strength and are most prominent from 1966 to 1975. Although there are separate categories relating to busing and desegregation, researchers are advised to check communications, meeting minutes, programs and projects, statistics, and school categories as well.
Communications between the superintendent and the Mayor and Common Council, School Board, principals, and Racine citizens also form a collection strength. Despite gaps in this correspondence, researchers will be able to glean district, city government, and citizen views on a variety of issues.
There are minutes of meetings of several groups including central office staff, consultants' group, some school teaching departments, principals, and student representatives. Minutes (1967-1981) of consultant group meetings are fairly complete and provide additional information in areas related to curriculum, research and development, and federal programs. Meetings with principals
took several forms. Good sets of meeting minutes exist for meetings held with all district principals and with separate groups of elementary, junior high, and high school principals.
There is occasional and scattered material relating to curriculum including subject areas (e.g. art), school level, reports of promotion and failure, and miscellaneous topics. There is also some material relating to school facilities, parental involvement, planning, and summer school programs. Records pertaining to specific schools is haphazard.
Although some areas may not have sufficient depth of information to satisfy the researcher, documentation of such program areas as gifted children, alcohol and drug abuse, improvement in dropout and truancy rates, bilingual education, special education, and federally mandated programs is accomplished through reports, studies, statistics, and correspondence. Legal cases are of interest as several involve special education placement disputes. Mae Freeman Ryan's lawsuit, 1938-1939, challenged the Board's decision to dismiss her after her marriage.
