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In January 1970, Orange County Florida Public Schools began the desegregation of all K-12 schools in response to a federal court order. Short on funding to provide the necessary massive busing operation, the school board proposed immediate faculty transfers in order to delay student desegregation until the start of the new school year in August. A high school French teacher from Illinois became involved in the hastily planned, televised lottery drawing that changed the lives and careers of many teachers.
A televised lottery in January 1970 was Orange County, Florida Public Schools' response to a federal court order for immediate public school desegregation. Massive busing would have required the use of nearly half of the county school budget for the academic year, so a plan for desegregating school faculties in January and desegregating students at the start of the new school year in August was submitted to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The plan was accepted and, with little time to effect the faculty transfers, a lottery drawing was proposed by the Classroom Teachers' Association.
After the names of hundreds of Black and White teachers were paired for transfer purposes during the live broadcast of the lottery, the names of two high school French teachers were called. The White teacher called the television station to resign rather than be transferred to the all Black high school. A replacement teacher had to be found immediately, since the transferred teachers had been given one school day to move their books, supplies, and equipment to the new school. Students were given no warning. The whole process soon became known as the Fishbowl Transfers.
Having recently moved to Orlando from the Chicago area, I was substitute teaching that January for the Foreign Language Department of an Orlando high school in hopes of meeting other language teachers. My story is of a sudden, unexpected, and edifying semester as the fishbowl replacement French teacher at Jones, Orlando's only all Black high school. My fishbowl transfer experiences altered my purposes for teaching and changed the path of my teaching career.
I was willing to contribute whatever I could in this difficult teaching situation. At the time, I thought of myself as a tolerant northerner, understanding and knowledgeable about the...