NORWALK, Conn. – In a story published here Wednesday, April 1, John Mosby was quoted as saying there has been a big drop in the number of black children enrolled in Norwalk Public Schools. At Tuesday’s Mayor’s Night Out, Mosby said there used to be 5,000 black children enrolled in Norwalk Public Schools, and now there are 2,000.
“If we keep it up, the way we’re going, we’re not going to have no minority kids in the school system,” Mosby said. “What’s wrong with that? That ain’t no racist remark. It’s time for the Board to start to look at this… The way it’s going we can wind up with no minority black kids in the school system.”
NancyOnNorwalk questioned the numbers and checked with Board of Education Chairman Mike Lyons on enrollment figures. Lyons reviewed state Strategic School Systems data and found the following (see attached Student Population Changes chart at bottom):
“There were 2,232 black students in NPS in the most recent state data (as of 2013),” Lyons said. “Eleven years before that (2001-2002), there were 2,902. So there has been a drop in the black student population (from 26.2 percent of the student body to 20.2 percent), but it isn’t dramatic, and the number hasn’t been anywhere near 5,000 (probably at any time in Norwalk’s history).
“There has been a far larger drop in the number of white students than black students over that time (from 46.9 percent to 35.8 percent). The big story, of course, has been the dramatic increase in the population of Hispanic students, rising from 22.7 percent to 37.7 percent over that time.”
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