For years, Misti Boackle had watched several cities break away from the Jefferson County school district that includes this Birmingham suburb, each forming what she considers superior school systems. So in 2012, she joined other residents to do the same for Gardendale.
“I felt it was the best thing for our family and our community,” said Ms. Boackle, a white mother of three children, two of whom attend Gardendale High School.
This spring, after years of battles, a court granted Gardendale a roadmap to having its own schools, though legal appeals have delayed it. Like many of the other area municipalities that have created separate school districts, Gardendale is a mostly white city while the county district is predominantly black.
The effort is one of a growing number of attempted school-district secessions—in states including California, Georgia and Wisconsin—highlighting deep divisions nationwide over race, class, and the role of desegregation orders six decades after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling. That decision declared racially separated schools unconstitutional.
Supporters of the moves say they are a way for communities to exert control over education policy and retain property-tax revenue for local benefit. Opponents say the separations can resegregate schools and exacerbate income disparities by breaking off wealthier, whiter areas.