On Feb. 2, the Department of Education in the federal government released a public portal called EndDEI.ED.Gov. Parents, students, and teachers can use the website to report programs that they believe are classified as DEI to the federal government. The day after the portal was launched was the deadline the Trump Administration set for all K-12 schools to abolish their DEI programs.
According to ABC News, DEI programs are ones that are used to help fix problems in organizations that can disproportionately hurt minority groups. These can include small actions such as making important information available in other languages to actively seeking to hire people from underrepresented groups.
California has refused to comply with the Trump Administration’s executive order. California’s Department of Education has stated there is nothing illegal about DEI programs.
The success of one such DEI program is seen in the Palo Alto Unified School District. The Tinsley Voluntary Transfer Program has affected the lives of hundreds of students in the area.
Every day, kids from East Palo Alto board buses that take them to different school districts around the area. Normally, you have to live in an area to attend school there. However, the Tinsley Voluntary Transfer Program has changed this.
Minorities have long been pushed into certain cities everywhere in the United States. This often isolates them, making them a complete minority in cities versus all white ones. According to the Urban Institute, policies and practices are used to deny minorities like Black people from living in a rich neighborhood with abundant resources. With that comes many socio-economic inequalities, resulting in the same policies often disadvantage minority groups by denying them resources and investment, often leading to inadequate schools. These systemic barriers are the very types of inequities that DEI programs aim to address.
In 1976, a group of over 170 parents and students filed a lawsuit claiming that their children were not receiving the same level of educational opportunities or the same quality. They said this was due to the isolation of their community which was mostly minorities. They believed communities close to them without big minority populations received better resources. The lawsuit was settled 10 years later in 1986 when the school districts took a settlement order. The result was not only a legal victory but also was the start of a program that focuses on correcting educational disparities, highlighting the core goal of DEI.
The Tinsley Voluntary Transfer Program allowed students who resided in East Palo Alto and attended a school in the Ravenswood City School District to attend a school in a select number of districts. Originally, Las Lomitas, Menlo Park City, Palo Alto Unified, Portola Valley, San Carlos, Woodside, Redwood City, and Belmont-Redwood Shores.
There are often more students applying than spots available, leaving some students without the opportunity that they are eligible for. It is not a quick fix to just add enough spots to the program, though. Ian Bain, executive director of strategy and communications at the San Mateo County Office of Education, explains that the number of students for the program was determined by the court order. The county or the districts can not just change this number.
The program selects the students who get in through a lottery system. Families fill out the application a year before they want to send their kid to school. From there, it is up to a few factors. Bain helps to run the lottery system that takes place.
“We consider other factors such as districts’ preferences for grade levels, and whether they have current siblings in the district,” Bain said. “Families also have district preferences. Based on that, we put it into an algorithm that determines the outcome.”
Palo Alto Unified School District is able to accept the largest number of students, at 60 kids. The rest of the districts can accommodate five to 26 students, respectively. There used to be a total of 206 spots open, but with Redwood City and Belmont-Redwood Shores no longer participating, that number lowered to 135.
This limitation not only shows the ever growing demand for DEI-focused programs, but also the structural constraints they face.
For many students, the program opens doors to new opportunities.
Senior Justun Kim, a participant in the program, reflects on his experience and how it changed his life.
“I didn’t personally choose to be part of the Tinsley program — I was only four when my parents signed me up — but I’m really grateful they did,” Kim said. “It’s given me the chance to learn from amazing teachers in PAUSD and be involved in clubs, organizations, and teams I wouldn’t have had access to otherwise.”
Despite all the positives, there are still challenges that persist with the program. One such problem for many students is transportation.
“It’s manageable for my family, but I can see how it could be hard for lower-income families without multiple cars,” Kim said. “If a parent needs to take the only car to work, it can leave the rest of the family without a way to get to school or other activities.”
The Tinsley Voluntary Transfer Program has changed over time in PAUSD. In 2019, students who were a part of the program closed enrollment to four elementary schools. The intentions were to lower the bus ride times and try to stop the isolation of minority students. Instead, many parents were upset that the district had not asked them to weigh in on it. They felt pressured to either pull their kid out of the school where they had gone for over a year or somehow find a new means of transportation.
The Tinsley Voluntary Transfer Program is trying to close gaps caused by social inequities due to isolated minority communities and de facto segregation. The purpose of this program, along with many other DEI is to help the students who need it. With DEI under attack at a national level, the Tinsley Program has grown from a local policy to a test, evaluating how willing local school boards are in addressing educational disparities.
“We want to help students thrive across all districts,” Bain said.