The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 122

3S IWWMIKPMI, COVER STORY The vo-tech campus in Pennsauken has mostly black and Hispanic students; the Gloucester Township campus has mostly whites. 1 i .4 1 1 wwifMWMnjt jiuiiiwuumuwj U'Wv" awy J1 i v' I 5 1 if- A i fA Superintendent R. Sanders Haldeman sptimartvo'grady Sending districts would pay for busing At cosmetology class in Gloucester Township are (from left) Vanessa Martin, 17, Cindy Minyon, 16, and Tamika Fleming, 17. See king racial balance on campus Ojwt'l Arlington 4 VHyT" I jff COUNTY jTC CAMDEN .11 Xy COUNTY I rGloucsstar The major difference between the two campuses is that at the Gloucester Township cosmetology class, which draws most of its students from nearby suburban towns in the eastern portion of the county, almost all the students are white. Only three of the 22 students enrolled are black.

There are no Hispanic students enrolled. In sharp contrast, at the Pennsauken campus, which attracts almost 90 percent of its students from adjoining Camden City, only three of the 45 students enrolled are white. There are 28 Hispanic and 14 black students. The two campuses are worlds apart architecturally, racially and cultural lya situation that state and county school officials have been trying to change without much success for the last four years. That could change slightly in September when a new desegregation policy takes effect requiring students enrolled in cosmetology to take their classes on the Pennsauken campus and the auto mechanics students to take their classes on the Gloucester Township campus.

For some of the 70 students involved, it means a bus ride of an hour or more. The Pennsauken campus is about the size of a typical, urban high By Christopher Hand SptcM The Inquirer At the rambling, 20-year-old Gloucester Township campus of the Camden County Vocational and Technical School on a recent snowy morning, the young women in the cosmetology program shampoo and clip each other's hair in a classroom punctuated i by hair dryers and lined with mirrors. About 21 miles east, at the Vocational and Technical school's sister campus in Pennsauken, about 30 cosmetology students are also doing each other's hair in a similar setting inside a 60-year-old building that resembles a Greek temple. GLOUCESTER COUNTY tiiiiiriff TK Philadelphia Inquirar school, occupying a space the size of a large city block. It was built in 1928, when most of Camden County's popu.

lation was centered on the largest city in South Jersey: Camden. Back then, mostly farms existed east of Camden. The Gloucester Township campus was constructed in 1969, when development started to stretch out to the far eastern portion of the county, according to Superintendent of Schools R. Sanders Haldeman. Today, the populations of the two campuses reflect the populations of the two sections of the county.

Mostly black or Hispanic students are en-, rolled at the Pennsauken campus, which is similar demographically to Camden City. According to current enrollment figures, 44 percent of the 788 students at the Pennsauken campus on Browning Road near Camden are black and 47 percent are Hispanic. The Gloucester Township campus reflects the largely white middlelass population of the newer suburbs in eastern Camden County. There, only 27 percent of the 745 high school students are black and 9 percent are Hispanic. The rest are white The campus, like the adjoining suburbs, sprawls outward, consisting of 10 buildings on 146 acres.

A corridor in one of the buildings on the Gloucester Township campus is about a quarter-mile long. At its January meeting, the Camden County Vocational and Technical Board of Education adopted the controversial policy aimed at desegregating the two schools. Under the plan. aU cosmetology students, including students from tnn mfc wj llidiiiin VL 1 fc 80 Mm WJ2" suUNGTOHCOUNTr Colaawood I Utmdi 2. UrU I CAMMH COUNTY INDEX Community news 37 Cover story 2 Education 4 Environment 32 Government 6 Living 34 Neighbors in the news 20 People ....35 Police report 15 Religion 29 Neighbors This section provides news about people, events, schools and governments In the Burlington County and Camden County communities listed on the cover.

Neighbors ts provided exclusively for South Jersey residents. Gloucester Township and other communities at Camden County's eastern edge, would be required to attend classes at the district's Pennsauken campus. Auto repair students in all but the freshman class would be required to take their classes at the Gloucester Township campus. Currently on that campus, 26 of the auto mechanics students are white, seven are black and one is Hispanic. At Pennsauken, two are white, nine are black and 23 are Hispanic.

The policy will affect only a handful of the district's 2.607 students hardly enough to comply with the state's guidelines, according to Superintendent Haldeman. The integration plan will be accom- News: 779-382S Advertising: 779-3800 Circulation 1-800-S2W068 Office: S3 Haddonfield Road, Suite 300. Cherry Hill. J. 08002.