In the wake of recent clashes between students and school personnel here in the Everett school district, the larger community needs to give extra thought to how we can better assimilate an increasingly diverse population.

After a fight involving Hispanic schoolgirls at Everett High School, according to a Seattle Times report by Lynn Thompson "Latino parents accused the district of overreacting and questioned whether police would have been called if the girls had been white. They also asked for a meeting with district Superintendent Carol Whitehead. ...(who) declined to meet with them, citing confidentiality of student records."

Sound familiar? It does to Latino parents, who perceive such responses as bureaucratic obfuscation designed more to protect the school staff than to solve an apparent problem. We see nothing in a request for a meeting that per se impinges on confidentiality. Officials need not violate confidentiality to discuss issues of general community concern.

Latino parents have within the past year filed 15 complaints with the school district claiming discriminatory treatment of their children. An independent investigator reported that a "disconnect" existed between minority students and school staff and administrators.

Hispanic parents also bemoan the gap in the academic achievement between their students and others in the district. Hispanic 10th-graders perform significantly below other Everett students on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, with only about a quarter meeting standards in math last year in comparison to nearly half of all tenth graders in the district. About twice as many Hispanic students drop out as the overall norm, according to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

District officials should do nothing to drive more wedges among segments of the community. Community meetings - with their potential for getting yelled at - are a small price to pay for an airing of issues that concern parents.

On the other hand, immigrant communities often wait for crises to respond en masse, given concerns about whether they will be treated fairly. Governnment and government-related institutions in most of the world are even less approachable than our own, and the global norm is to keep one's head down. Here, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, so all persons with a grievance to redress need to come forward before a crisis emerges.

Who among us has no ancestor who had trouble adapting or felt alienated by the larger society? Of all places, one would think a school would be a good place to have learned the lesson. Let us know when the meeting is scheduled. RC

This story in the Seattle Times inspired this post