The Dade County, Fla., school board has decided not to overrule the ''C” in conduct given to a student whose father has threatened legal action if the grade is not changed. The parent, Gerald Tobin, who is a lawyer, was distressed because the low grade marred his daughter’s straight-A record.
The issue, Mr. Tobin said, involves not only the academic record of his daughter, but also the rights of Florida students to demand hearings on grades they believe to be undeserved or unfair.
The complaint has already received an “area hearing,” a remedy set forth in the administrative code for complaints in the district, which is divided into four areas. That hearing, however, failed to satisfy the parent.
Officials and attorneys for the school board, however, determined that the area hearing met the requirements of the state law, which states that parents and students have the right to challenge any record or report to which they are granted access.
As of April 21, an attorney for the school board said, Mr. Tobin had taken no legal action, and the board remained uncertain whether he would do so.
The Cleveland school board has hired a state education official to reorganize the district’s administration--in part because there may be no one else around to do it.
Earlier this month, the board voted not to renew the contracts of 141 administrators--all above the rank of principal--when they expire in August. The board also voted this spring not to renew the contract of Superintendent Peter P. Carlin.
U.S. District Judge Frank J. Battisti, who ordered and has closely supervised the desegregation of the city’s schools, has found the present administration poorly equipped to carry out the desegregation plan. Before he will return authority to the school board, Judge Battisti has said, the system must have a new superintendent, improved fiscal controls, and a new administrative structure.
The latter task has fallen to Roger J. Lulow, an assistant superintendent in the state department of education. Mr. Lulow, who is on leave from the state agency, began his new duties last week as Cleveland’s deputy superintendent for reorganization.
A federal judge has approved revisions in the desegregation plan for the Memphis public schools, eliminating 151 bus trips and adding 44.
The changes, negotiated by the city school board and the naacp Legal Defense Fund and approved this month by U.S. District Judge Robert M. McRae Jr., include closing three elementary schools, establishing an alternative high school, exempting integrated neighborhoods from busing, and changing the grades served by 23 other schools.
School officials hope that the reductions in busing will attract white students back to the public schools while improving racial balance.
The plan calls for busing, for the first time, in a predominantly white area in the northeast section of the district. Parents in that neighborhood say they will appeal the plan.
