 Laura Donnan even had a motto in her class that was, “A penny in France is worth two pennies in your pants.”

Due to the changing racial makeup of the neighborhoods that fed Shortridge, some parents on the school's Parent-Teacher Association supported redrawing the Shortridge district to find a more even racial balance.By 1964, some felt that the school had reached a crisis.A protest march that fall from the school to Indianapolis Public Schools offices was supported by 200 students.