Black Friends

How old is he and what grade is he in?

You can ask him how he choses his friends and what he likes about them. If you do it the right way he won't realize what you are trying to figure out. Even young kids fall into cliques or have biases... One of his best friends may be controlling who he's friends with... I see that all the time with kids. Just don't count on him connecting with black kids when he changes school if he's not connecting when he's already in a diverse environment. You can't force friendships but you can figure out if there is any kiddie bias going and and take steps to correct that and then let the chips fall where they may.

You stated that all his best friends live within one block. Well, it is probably as simple as that. He plays most often with the kids who are closest and the kids that are closest aren't black. Personally, I understand. It would bother me too. But as a kid, you are generally more likely to be close friends with the kid next door even if you have more in common with a friend from school who you would have to drive to see. Sorry I don't have any advice.

Sleep, I think he chooses his friends based on who he wants to be friends with which seems to be based on athletic ability and who doesn't get in trouble at school. He doesn't like the kids who act like babies still. I just had a talk with him the other day about it. And I went to kindy graduation. There are not any black boys in his class. Only girls. There actually aren't many boys in his class at all! Its odd to me. We used to have an incredibly diverse life that exposed us to many people of color (actually had very few white friends) and something happened (maybe the shift in the economy??) and that diversity seems to be gone. Not really sure how to remedy that.

The school probably spread all the black kids out. That's what my kids school did. In DD's class there was only her and one boy and then DS's class there were a total of 3 boys and no AA girls. The school does it in their matching/interview process in kindergarten. There is no way that it was random that all the ethnic kids were evenly distributed like that. There were way more Hispanics kids than AA kids and they were evenly distributed throughout the 9 kindergarten classes too. The interesting thing is that my kids CC friends are not southerners... their parents are transplants from other places like California or Michigan. Spreading kids out racially is nothing new. When I was in high school it was pretty blatant. They used to announce that certain classes were closed to black or white students.

I don't think the spread out the black kids for kindy on purpose. There is no afternoon kindy bussing. Its only kids who live within 1 mile of the school or whose parents agree to drive them for afternoon kindy. Interestingly, the school is actually very black. We have magnet schools in traditionally black and hispanic neighborhoods to that are racially balanced for grades 1-5. Even if you live in the neighborhood, you have to apply to get in. The neighborhood kids who don't get in go the the sister school. Our neighborhood school is the sister school to an almost all black zoned school. So our neighborhood school gets about 75% of the kids zoned for the black school in grades 1-5. However, those same kids go to their neighborhood school for kindy. So our kindy is considerably whiter than than the rest of the grade levels. I hope that made some sense. Its totally OT but our neighborhood school (about 60% children of color) unofficially divides kids in grades 1-5 by ability. The theory being that if each teacher teaches to the middle of the class ability wise, the "smart kids" won't be held back as much by the "dumb kids." Good in theory. Unfortunately, it results in very race segregated classes. I don't think its at all intentional (administration and staff are largely people of color) but it is very unfortunate. I just looked up the new school and its exactly racially balanced 1/3 white, 1/3 black, 1/3 other. Hopefully, he will make some black friends there with more to choose from!

Sleeplvr was not referring to 'bussing' She meant spread the present school population evenly amongst the various kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade etc; classes.

That's how I understood it also Nick. I just meant they only put kids from my neighborhood in afternoon kindy because there is no bus service for afternoon kindy. We have so few kids within a mile from the school that the vast majority of our school gets bus service. Not in the racial balancing sense but in the "they live too far to walk sense." I wondered if I was just being hyper sensative to the racial imbalance in individual classes so I went back and looked at the yearbook and at least one class out of 4 for each grade has no more than one white kid. And at least 1 class has only one kid or two kids of color. Very weird and not sure what to think about that. Its really shocking to visually look at.

Ahhh I understand now. Yea, guess it's to offset clustering.

My black and biracial kids are now 22, 17 and almost 16. I made an attempt to see that they would meet the few other black and biracial kids in their age groups in our area. Actually, there aren't any my 22 YO son's age, because we were the first here to have adopted transracially but, by a few years later, several other families here did so, too. Other than that, I have just let them choose who their friends are, naturally. My two youngest kids have several friends who are biracial and many who are white. I think they are somewhat attracted to the other kids with some African ancestry, because of the similarities, but then it just comes down to who they have fun with and nothing to do with how they look. When I think back to when they were small, other than the times that I created play dates for them with other multiracial families in our area, they played with the kids who lived near us, and those kids were always white. I think it is normal to be concerned about these things, but we can worry too much, too. I know there are people who worry that our kids will grow up thinking they are white, or wanting to be white, but I haven't seen that at all.

I do know you can worry too much about this stuff. Its just gets my goat that every time I think I have it right, it still doesn't work. The last school was heavily black and an excellent private school and I thought I had hit the jackpot. I missed that all the staff were white (and extremely prejudiced). SO I moved him to a school with an equal number of blacks to match the population in Vegas with lots of staff of color (including the principal). And then it turns out those classes are unintentionally race segregated. The next school is heavily black and reasonably multi racially staffed. I hope I finally got it right and his friendships will broaden.

From the school switching you mentioned in another post I am assuming your son is still fairly young. If that's the case I think it's harmless and he's simply playing with who's available. Looking back I don't think any of the close friends my BR boys made, regardless of race, are from class. They where either neighborhood kids, kids they played sports with (they might have been in class) or kids they met through their friends. If the new school doesn't give you the desired results you can see if there's an after school activity or sport he's interested in. He might just be choosing kids he has something in common with (other then his race). Placing him in a diverse environment with other kids that share an interest should increase the odds of making friends with AA or BR kids. Again, hard to say without knowing how old he is, but likely harmless.

Hard to predict. I know as a lawyer you like facts, check out greatschools dot org. Articles on certain signs to look for, questions to ask regarding diversity, achievement gap and so forth.

Nick, I am addicted to Great School! The school he is going to got the highest rankings for a school in our public school district. As did his current school. Mark, he's going into first grade. And his extra curricular is diving. 6 hours a week! FYI, not a lot of black people dive ;)

Interesting topic! I have always taught my children to choose friends not based on what they look like or how much money their parents have. I want my kids to pick friends based on what is inside, how they treat others and that they have similar interest. A person can look like you but not have the same set of values or interest. Our daughter has mainly white friends although her class is diverse. My white children have a diverse group of friends. I think when it comes down to it your son will choose his friends based on who they are and their interest and color really wont be the main determination.