Black students' field trips tabled over inclusion concerns

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- An Indiana school district is revising plans to take black students on field trips to local colleges after some parents complained that the trips excluded students of other races.

South Bend Community School Corp.'s director of African-American student and parent services had planned the field trips to expose black third-graders to higher education. District spokeswoman Sue Coney tells the South Bend Tribune the trips hadn't been vetted in advance.

Coney says the district has postponed two trips this week. Superintendent Carole Schmidt told the school board Monday that the field trips would be open to all students.

The district in 2013 launched an effort to create academic and social programs focused on black students amid concerns that they had been disproportionately suspended and labeled as special education students.