By Gretchen Keiser

St. Anthony’s schoolchildren who were going to remedial classes in a vacant school building frequented by street people are now in a new location because of a devastating fire.

Beginning April 14 the special classes in math and reading for about 60 children from the West End Catholic elementary school are being held in two rented rooms above a realty company office on Gordon Street about three blocks from the school.

The change occurred because the vacant Peeples Street public school, chosen by the Atlanta school system as the site for the remedial Chapter 1 program, was nearly destroyed by fire March 29, which gutted half of the three-story brick building and left the rest water damaged.

The Easter weekend fire climaxed a controversy about the use of the site for classes for elementary school children, who can no longer receive the remedial instruction in St. Anthony’s school in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last July.

Sister Patricia Clune, C.S.J., principal of St. Anthony’s, had questioned the safety of the site when it was proposed in January for the classes and a January visit to the school revealed that ground floor lavatories were easily accessible to homeless street people through broken windows and a working stove across the hall from the classroom was leaking gas.

While Chapter 1 classes were held there for six weeks from Feb. 1 until the fire, another two weeks of instruction time have been lost while a new site was located.

Viewing the new premises April 11, Sister Clune said, “it’s a lot better than Peeples Street” but also questioned whether the location could be anything more than a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

“I think it’s a fine alternative for two months, but I’m not going to be satisfied with that” as a permanent answer, said Sister Clune, “because I don’t think it’s the best option for the kids.” Walking time to and from the Gordon Street location will take perhaps 10 to 15 minutes away from the class time, she observed, and in heavy rain transportation would be a new problem that is just being discussed with officials from the Atlanta school system and the federally-funded Chapter 1 program.

The possibility of placing a mobile classroom or van on the grounds of the West End library next to St. Anthony’s or on a cul-de-sac behind the school still strikes her as a more workable answer to a difficulty that is unlikely to go away.

Wrestling since last summer with the impact of the Supreme Court decision which said public school remedial education teachers could no longer teach on the premises of religiously affiliated private schools, Catholic school principals and state and local school officials are now presenting their conflicting versions of events to U.S. Education Department representatives.

Sister Joan McCann, O.P., assistant superintendent of Catholic schools, in a memorandum to U.S. Catholic Conference officials in Washington, D.C., said principals have been unable to obtain timely or satisfactory alternatives from local and state education officials.

Of seven Catholic schools which had working Chapter 1 programs last year, two have no program at all this year, one hired the public school teacher to continue the program as a Catholic school teacher, and four others have had limited programs, either before or after school, or, in the case of St. Anthony’s, for only part of the school year and in a disputed location.

Sister McCann’s memorandum prompted U.S. Education Department officials to step into the controversy, asking Georgia education officials to respond and present plans for meeting the remedial education needs of Catholic school children.

In its July ruling, the Supreme Court said that private school children who qualify for the special instruction still must receive it, but must do so in a location other than on the property of the religiously affiliated school.

After stepping into the Georgia dispute, the U.S. Education Department “urged” the state Superintendent of Schools “to inform the local school districts in question to retain sufficient funds to ensure that equitable services to private school children will be provided.”

Despite that written urging, state Chapter 1 officials at a regional meeting in Conyers, April 10 questioned whether or not any Chapter 1 funds designated for, but not spent on Catholic school children this year would, in fact, be held over for those children in the form of a special summer school program or additional remedial help next year.

The question was one of the concerns being brought by Catholic school principals to a special meeting April 14 with state and local Chapter 1 officials. The meeting was expected to include Sister McCann, the principals of St. Anthony’s, Our Lady of Lourdes, Christ the King and St. Paul of the Cross in Atlanta and the principals of Sts. Peter and Paul and St. Thomas More in Decatur. Chapter 1 officials representing the Atlanta school system, DeKalb County and the state were expected to attend.

In an initial response to the U.S. Education Department, Lucille G. Jordan, associate state superintendent in the Office of Instructional Services, said that two Catholic schools, St. Joseph’s in Athens and St. Thomas More in Decatur, were offered services and refused them, and that Christ the King had rejected “several options for equitable services.”

Sister McCann disagreed with that analysis, saying that in all three cases the only option offered was busing Catholic school students a considerable distance, an alternative which principals and in some cases, parents, did not view as acceptable. Busing, “whether it’s one hour or 15 minutes…is still a waste of instructional time,” Sister McCann said.

The U.S. Education Department has now requested the Catholic schools’ response to the state’s explanation. In several states, including California and North Carolina, federal officials are trying to negotiate a compromise between the two parties. If necessary, the Education Department can invoke a “bypass” in which Chapter 1 programs for Catholic school systems can be arranged directly between the private school and the federal government, bypassing the state and local public school district.

The April 14 meeting between state and Catholic school representatives in Atlanta and DeKalb County was an attempt to plan together for the coming school year’s Chapter 1 services in the six metropolitan area schools.

Prior to the April 14 meeting Sister Clune summed up her conflicting feelings. “How much more energy is it going to take to get what is just?” she asked, adding that the amount of struggle and controversy is, in a way, “a compliment” to the Chapter 1 program.

“I believe in the program so much. It’s a wonderful program,” she said. “It would be so much easier if it were a terrible program” that could be dismissed without a loss for the students, “but it’s a good program.”

Asked whether there was an active possibility that mobile classrooms or vans could be used in the coming year, Ethel Blayton, consultant for the Chapter 1 program for the Atlanta school system, said, “If we’re going to have it, we’ll have it next year. I guess it will have to grow out of whatever comes out of the planning meeting.”