While the Board of Education is deciding whether it will establish a lottery for families who want to send their children to one of the best school districts in the city, an immigrants’ organization claims the lottery will be only one step among others the Board must take to eliminate discrimination in District 3.

For several years, the Center for Immigrant Families has been investigating the complaints that some of the best schools in Manhattan have adopted a whole series of tactics to close their doors to poor students, or to those of color.

The problem occurs in many of the schools in District 3, which runs from West 57 St. to 122 St., including all of the Upper West Side and part of Harlem.

The members of the Immigrant Families Center, who published a report on the matter last summer, point out that when a non-English-speaking parent arrives and asks for information on how to enroll her daughter, she is told there is no interpreter available at some of the schools in this district.

Delsa Rossó, for example, who is the mother of two daughters, says that when she asked to participate in the guided tour of the Manhattan School for Children, on 93 St., “there was no one available” to speak with her in Spanish. “There was no translator for me,” recounts Rossó. “I felt completely discriminated against because of my language.”

There is also an economic barrier, says Rossó. When parents apply to enroll their children in school, they are questioned about how much they can “contribute” economically to the school. Rossó indicates that at one school the parents were expected to contribute $200.

As the city’s population grows ever more diverse, the number of white kindergarten students has increased at several District 3 schools, according to the Center for Immigrant Families report.

The problem is partly due to the fact that in District 3 the school principals have a great deal of autonomy in determining whom they will accept in their schools, and frequently accept children who do not reside in the immediate neighborhood of the school.

As a result of the report, and of the controversy generated by the immigrant mothers’ complaints, the Board of Education announced last month that it is considering implementing a lottery to control student admissions to schools in the district.

Yesterday, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein attended a closed-door meeting to discuss the issue, and there will be at least one public hearing before a decision is made on a lottery plan in the middle of March, said a spokesperson for Klein.

But the Immigrant Families Center, which is considering taking legal action to resolve the problem, pointed out that a fairly run lottery would be only one of the solutions this problem demands. Donna Nevel, of the Center, said that it is also necessary to examine how each school in District 3 defines its area of residency. Nevel and Rossó also stated that discrepancies must be corrected in the “talented students” programs in District 3, programs which, according to the Center, have allowed limited access to students of color.