Suburbs May Ask Funds To Bus Boston Pupils

Several Boston suburbs may soon ask the Federal government for money to open their schools to hundreds of the city's Negro students--and their request could be backed by Harvard and other Boston-area universities.

Their plan calls for students to be bused from Boston to some ten suburban towns, ranging from next-door Brookline to Winchester, Concord and Brain-tree. The cost of their tuition and transportation would be paid by Federal funds possibly under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Leon Trilling, a Brookline school committeeman who organized the suburban group, said yesterday that a decision from each of the towns is expected within the next few weeks.

The chances of winning approval for the busing plan are good, Trilling said--especially if it is joined to a program in which educators from Harvard and other universities would work with suburban teachers and principals.

Vincent Conroy, director of the Center for Field Studies at the Graduate School of Education, said yesterday that a Boston committee which is studying desegregation training programs that would be financed under the Civil Rights Act may pool its efforts with the suburban towns.

If the two groups merge, Conroy said, all the funds--including the money for busing--would be requested by one university or a committee of universities.

The busing would also need approval from the Boston School Committee, which is expected to meet with representatives of the towns sometime this month. "I can see a number of disadvantages to the plan," Thomas S. Eisenstadt, committee chairman, said in an interview yesterday. "But it might well pass if brought to a vote."

He pointed out that civil-rights leaders have questioned whether Negro parents would volunteer their children for a suburban busing program.

The ten towns now have room for a few hundred students from Boston, Trilling estimated. The federal government would be asked to provide about $1000 for each student.