DAYTON, Ohio — City school officials have ended two months of waiting for the NAACP to evaluate a plan to eliminate cross-town busing designed to achieve racial balance.

        The board voted 7-0 Friday to ask a federal judge to lift the desegregation order despite indications that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People may not support the move.

        Board President Ricky Boyd said a motion will be filed with the court within seven days.

        Dayton is the only city in Ohio that remains under court-ordered desegregation.

        The city began busing students to schools across town in 1976. A lawsuit filed by the NAACP led to the desegregation order from U.S. District Court.

        School board officials have said they favor ending the desegregation order because 73 percent of the students in the district are black and busing them across town serves little purpose.

        But the NAACP has not said whether it will support such a move and has not responded to requests from the school board to meet and discuss the issue.

        Richard Melson, who has four children in Dayton public schools, said he does not think efforts to lift the desegregation order would be derailed by the NAACP's opposition. There is too much community opposition to busing, he said.

        “It would be foolish on the part of the NAACP not to support this decision,” said the 43-year-old Mr. Melson, a computer specialist at Colonel White High School.

        “When the majority of students in the city are black, how do you comply with an order when there is no mathematical way to do it? In my judgment, the NAACP is living 30 years in the past on this issue.”

        Jessie Gooding, president of the Dayton chapter of the NAACP, said he wants to wait until the board asks the court to lift the desegregation order before meeting with school officials.

        “We want to see what they're recommending,” Mr. Gooding said. “Once they file a motion, then negotiations start. We need to know why they're doing this. We don't know.”

        Under a tentative agreement reached with the state in December, the school district would receive $32 million over two years from the state to build and renovate schools.

        That amount would replace the state aid the school district has received to bus students.

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