Editing Desegregation busing (section)

=== Prince George's County, Maryland ===
{{unreferenced section |date=October 2014}}
In 1974, [[Prince George's County, Maryland|Prince George's County]], Maryland, became the largest school district in the United States forced to adopt a busing plan. The county, a large suburban school district east of [[Washington, D.C.]], was over 80 percent white in population and in the public schools. In some county communities close to Washington, there was a higher concentration of black residents than in more outlying areas. Through a series of desegregation orders after the ''Brown'' decision, the county had a neighborhood-based system of school boundaries. However, the [[NAACP]] argued that housing patterns in the county still reflected the vestiges of segregation. Against the will of the Board of Education of Prince George's County, the federal court ordered that a school busing plan be set in place. A 1974 [[Gallup poll]] showed that 75 percent of county residents were against forced busing and that only 32 percent of blacks supported it.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hunt, Thomas C.; Carper, James C.;Lasley, II, Thomas J.;Raisch, C. Daniel |title=Encyclopedia of Educational Reform and Dissent |date=20 January 2010 |publisher=SAGE Publications, Inc |isbn=978-1-4129-5664-2 |url=http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/educationalreform}}</ref>

The transition was very traumatic as the court ordered that the plan be administered with "all due haste". This happened during the middle of the school term, and students, except those in their senior year in high school, were transferred to different schools to achieve racial balance. Many high school sports teams' seasons and other typical school activities were disrupted. Life in general for families in the county was disrupted by things such as the changes in daily times to get children ready and receive them after school, transportation logistics for extracurricular activities, and parental participation activities such as volunteer work in the schools and [[Parent-Teacher Association|PTA]] meetings.

The federal case and the school busing order was officially ended in 2001, as the "remaining vestiges of segregation" had been erased to the court's satisfaction. Unfortunately, the ultimate result has been resegregation through changes to county demographics, as the percentage of white county residents dropped from over 80% in 1974 to 27% in 2010.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/princegeorgescountymaryland/PST040219 |title=U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Prince George's County, Maryland |website=www.census.gov |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200301051117/https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/princegeorgescountymaryland/PST040219 |archive-date=2020-03-01}} </ref> Neighborhood-based school boundaries were restored. The Prince George's County Public Schools was ordered to pay the [[NAACP]] more than $2&nbsp;million in closing attorney fees and is estimated to have paid the NAACP over $20&nbsp;million over the course of the case.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hunt |first1=Thomas C. |last2=Carper |first2=James C. |last3=Lasley, II |first3=Thomas J. |last4=Raisch |first4=C. Daniel |title=Encyclopedia of Educational Reform and Dissent |date=January 12, 2010 |publisher=SAGE Publications, Inc |isbn=978-1-4129-5664-2 |page=123 |edition=1st |url=http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/educationalreform |access-date=26 December 2019}}</ref>