Topic: Education

We fight for students in the public education system to get access to the quality education they have a right to, and to end the school to prison pipeline.

Topic: Education

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RALEIGH, January 5, 2017 – Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Advocates for Children’s Services project joined the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and other youth advocates to urge the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to resolve the partners’ six-year-old complaint regarding racially discriminatory discipline practices in the Wake County Public School System.

“Discriminatory discipline practices have remained virtually unchanged over the past six years. That clearly demonstrates that the problem is systemic,” said Jennifer Story, lead attorney of Advocates for Children’s Services. “Not only are we asking for action from the U.S. Department of Education, we are asking for ongoing monitoring to ensure compliance. Otherwise, we run the risk of continuing to allow discrimination and depriving kids of the fairness and opportunities they deserve.”

Read the full press release and letter to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Topic: Education

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RALEIGH, N.C., December 9, 2014 – Out-of-school suspensions in the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) dropped 45 percent in the last five years, according to data released by the district yesterday. Although these numbers represent a positive shift to keep students in the classroom and out of the school-to-prison pipeline, they also demonstrate the persistence of huge racial and disability disparities in suspensions rates in the district and the need for more work to be done.

Since Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Advocates for Children’s Services (ACS) began its work five years ago to reduce suspensions and end the school-to-prison pipeline in Wake County, the total number of out-of-school suspensions in WCPSS has fallen from 20,244 in the 2009-10 school year to 11,205 in 2013-14—even as student enrollment rose over that period by 9.4 percent. The number of individual students suspended declined by 35 percent over the same five-year period. WCPSS made the announcement about the declining suspension rates in a press release at the Student Achievement Committee of the Board of Education meeting on Monday.

“We are thrilled by the decline in out-of-school suspensions and commend the district for its ongoing efforts to reduce the number of students being pushed out of school,” said Jennifer Story, an attorney for ACS. “However, we remain extremely concerned about the ongoing disparate push-out impact of district policies and practices on African-American students and students with disabilities, as well as the quality of some of the alternative settings in which students who would otherwise be suspended are placed.”

African-American students represent one-quarter of WCPSS students, but last year received over 60 percent of all suspensions. Similarly, students with disabilities represent about 13 percent of the WCPSS population, but were one-third of suspended students. ACS has also long raised concerns about the quality of Alternative Learning Programs such as the Second Chance Online Recovery for Education (SCORE) and other programs intended to decrease out-of-school suspension rates.

“These data make clear that much work remains to be done to remedy the discriminatory impacts of Wake County’s school discipline policies,” said Jason Langberg, supervising attorney at ACS. “The persistence of student and parent advocates that we have seen over the last five years will continue to be critical moving forward.”

Since 2009, Legal Aid of North Carolina has provided high-quality legal advice and representation for hundreds of Wake County families and trained thousands of students, parents, service providers and advocates. ACS has filed multiple state special education complaints and federal civil rights complaints on behalf of clients against WCPSS. In the past two years, ACS published a comprehensive report and produced a documentary detailing the school-to-prison pipeline in WCPSS.

“We’ve made wonderful progress, but still have a long way to go,” said Story. “To increase student achievement and equity, we must continue to be diligent about reducing suspensions, eliminating discipline disparities and ensuring the availability of high-quality alternatives. The district is heading in a very positive direction, and we are hopeful that that it will continue to work collaboratively with parents, students, and advocates to meaningfully end the school-to-prison pipeline in Wake County.”

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Legal Aid of North Carolina is a statewide, nonprofit law firm that provides free legal services in civil matters to low-income people in order to ensure equal access to justice and remove legal barriers to economic opportunity. Advocates for Children’s Services is a statewide project that works for education justice and an end to the school-to-prison pipeline through legal advocacy, community education, and collaboration.

Media Contact

Jennifer Story, Advocates for Children’s Services, 919-226-5921, jenr@legalaidnc.org

Topic: Education

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Black children and children with disabilities at center of complaint

DURHAM | Feb. 22, 2018 – Federal officials in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) will monitor Durham Public Schools (DPS) as part of a resolution agreement that ends a federal investigation into the school district’s discipline practices. The agreement reached earlier this month was sparked by a 2013 complaint filed by Advocates for Children’s Services (ACS) of Legal Aid of North Carolina and the Center for Civil Rights Remedies of the Civil Rights Project of UCLA.

Read the resolution agreement

Read the complaint from 2013

According to the complaint, Black students and students with disabilities in DPS were suspended more frequently than their peers in violation of federal anti-discrimination laws. The resolution agreement requires the district to take immediate action to make its discipline policies and practices more fair and equitable.

“For years, we have seen DPS push Black students and students with disabilities out of school and into the court system at much higher rates than their White and non-disabled classmates,” said Aisha Forte, staff attorney at ACS. “In addition to being unlawful, these exclusionary discipline practices harm individual students and the overall school community. We hope that this resolution agreement will stop the flow of children into Durham’s school-to-prison pipeline and bring about meaningful and lasting change in the district.”

The resolution agreement outlines several action steps that the district must take in the coming year. These steps include:

  • Appointing a Discipline Supervisor to oversee discipline practices across the district;
  • Developing a Discipline Action Plan to ensure discipline referrals and consequences are appropriately and equitably applied regardless of race or disability status;
  • Reviewing and revising current student discipline policies with input from OCR;
  • Ensuring robust data collection and self-monitoring;
  • Providing ongoing training to district staff regarding fair and equitable imposition of discipline;
  • Improving guidelines and data collection for school police;
  • Engaging community stakeholders in the process; and
  • Reviewing alternative school placement procedures.

In response to the multi-year civil rights investigation and growing community pressure to decrease suspensions and address disparities, DPS had already started taking important steps to combat discrimination in the district, including hiring an Equity Director and engaging community stakeholders in reviewing and revising DPS discipline policies. However, despite these efforts, the district saw a spike in the use of suspension last school year, and parents continue to report that their children face discrimination in Durham Public Schools.

“I want to send my son to school every day trusting that his teachers and administrators will support and fight for him like they would any student,” said parent Tajuana Parker, who was one of many parents who shared stories of discrimination with OCR during the course of its longstanding investigation. “However, instead of pushing my son to reach his potential, it too often feels like they are spending their time and energy finding ways to push him out of school.”

OCR will continue to monitor the agreement through at least September 1, 2019. In addition to federal monitoring, various parent and community advocacy groups are calling on the district to take bold action to ensure all children have the same opportunity to succeed.

“We are glad the district is acknowledging this problem and open to taking action,” said Jovonia Lewis, a DPS parent and member of the Education Committee of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People. “However, if DPS truly wants to make things better for Black and Brown children, it will be important to ensure that students and parents of color have a meaningful voice at the table. We are eager to work with the district to bring about the systemic changes needed to make DPS a place where all children can learn and thrive.”

National experts praise the resolution agreement, highlighting its potential to create positive change in the district and enable Durham to serve as a model for districts across the country. “Based on research on what effective practices can do, I anticipate that most leaders and teachers will be happy with the changes, if they are implemented with integrity,” noted Dan Losen, director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies of the Civil Rights Project and a collaborator on the 2013 complaint to OCR. “The result of this agreement should be improved academic outcomes and improved school climate overall.”

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Legal Aid of North Carolina is a statewide, nonprofit law firm that provides free legal services in civil matters to low-income people in order to ensure equal access to justice and to remove legal barriers to economic opportunity. Advocates for Children’s Services is a special project of Legal Aid that works to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline in North Carolina through legal advocacy, community education and community collaboration.

Media Contact
Sean Driscoll, Director of Public Relations, Legal Aid of North Carolina, 919-856-2132, seand@legalaidnc.org