Jefferson County Public Schools officials say they will no longer consider race when hiring or transferring teachers, ending the district's long-standing policy of dispersing minority teachers among the schools.

District personnel director Bill Eckels says the decision was made because there was no way to enforce the policy.

A ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court last year rejected a similar district policy of using race to determine student assignment on the same grounds.

The teacher assignment policy had required that most Jefferson County schools maintain their percentages of black instructors between 7 and 22-percent, depending on the grade level.

The policy, also called the "Singleton Ratio," was named after a 1960s desegregation lawsuit and used in Jefferson County since the 1970s.