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ELC Executive Director Deborah Gordon Klehr Elected to Membership in the American Law Institute

On October 24, The American Law Institute  announced the election of 37 new members nationwide, including ELC’s Executive Director Deborah Gordon Klehr. The American Law Institute is the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and otherwise improve the law.  “This latest group of new members exemplifies the diversity in perspective and experience essential to the work of The American Law Institute,” said ALI President David F. Levi. “We always hope to work with thoughtful and wise people who care about the things that we do. This is another great opportunity to do just that.”  Congratulations Deborah!

 

Pa. Department of Education finds Philadelphia School District Violated Rights of at least 800 Children Starting Kindergarten

The Education Law Center has successfully filed a complaint against the School District of Philadelphia on behalf of hundreds of students with disabilities who were not provided with needed services after entering kindergarten or first-grade. The Pennsylvania Department of Education has issued corrective action in response to the complaint, requiring the School District of Philadelphia to issue compensatory education services for all children who were denied a free, appropriate, public education due to the District’s delay and inaction. The Education Law Center applauded the Department’s findings and intervention but also requested further corrective action.  Here are links to read the Complaint and the Department’s Complaint Investigation Report.

Pa. Supreme Court Delivers Major Victory for Schoolchildren across the Commonwealth in School Funding Case

On September 28, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court delivered a major victory to hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania students by ordering the Commonwealth Court to hold a trial on whether state officials are violating the state’s constitution by failing to adequately and equitably fund public education.

The lawsuit – William Penn School District, et al. v. Pennsylvania Dept. of Education, et al. – was filed in 2014 on behalf of parents, school districts, and statewide organizations in response to the failure in Harrisburg to adequately fund public education and provide students with the resources they need to succeed academically.

In a sweeping decision, the Court agreed that it has a clear duty to consider the case and ensure legislative compliance with the state’s Education Clause, which requires the General Assembly to “provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education” for Pennsylvania’s schoolchildren. The Court also found no basis to deny consideration of claims by parents and school districts that the legislature’s grossly unequal funding discriminates against children based on where they live and the wealth of their communities.  Read the decision here.

“Judicial review stands as a bulwark against unconstitutional or otherwise illegal actions by the two political branches,” Justice David N. Wecht wrote in his majority opinion. “It is fair neither to the people of the Commonwealth nor the General Assembly itself to expect that body to police its own fulfillment of its constitutional mandate.”

“Today’s ruling ensures that our schoolchildren across Pennsylvania will finally have their day in court,” said Deborah Gordon Klehr, executive director of Education Law Center – PA, which brought the suit along with the Public Interest Law Center and pro bono counsel from O’Melveny & Myers LLP. “We look forward to presenting extensive evidence proving that decades of underfunding and inequity in our public education system violate Pennsylvania’s Constitution.”

“The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s landmark decision today vindicates the principle that adequate and fair school funding is a constitutional mandate, not a political issue,” said Michael Churchill, an attorney with the Public Interest Law Center. “Now that the court has ruled that education funding is subject to judicial review, we hope the Governor and legislature will work with us and our partners to bring Pennsylvania into constitutional compliance by ensuring that every school has adequate resources.”

“We are gratified by the Supreme Court’s decision and the opportunity to take this case to trial, and we hope it will be a turning point for Pennsylvania’s public education system,” said Brad Elias, an attorney with O’Melveny & Myers who serves as pro bono counsel for the petitioners. “Our goal is to ensure that all children in Pennsylvania have equal access to a thorough and efficient education, and this decision brings us one step closer to achieving that.”

The case now heads back to Commonwealth Court for a full trial, which will permit advocates to present evidence proving their claims. Lawyers on the case will ask the court to expedite the trial, given the importance of the case.

Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court dismissed the case in 2015, relying on an older Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision and saying that education funding was not subject to judicial review. Today the state’s highest court reversed that decision, and overruled that earlier precedent, agreeing with advocates that school children and school districts must be able to seek relief from the Courts to protect their rights to a quality education.

“Judicial oversight must be commensurate with the priority reflected in the fact that for centuries our charter has featured some form of educational mandate,” Justice Wecht wrote. “Otherwise, it is all but inevitable that the obligation to support and maintain a ‘thorough and efficient system of public education’ will jostle on equal terms with non-constitutional considerations that the people deemed unworthy of embodying in their Constitution. We cannot avoid our responsibility to monitor the General Assembly’s efforts in service of its mandate and to measure those effects against the constitutional imperative, ensuring that non-constitutional considerations never prevail over that mandate.”

The petitioners in the case are six families, six school districts – William Penn, Panther Valley, Lancaster, Greater Johnstown, Wilkes-Barre Area and Shenandoah Valley – the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, and the NAACP Pennsylvania State Conference.

“Today’s ruling represents a major victory for civil rights across Pennsylvania,” said Pennsylvania NAACP President Dr. Joan Duvall-Flynn. “For too long, access to a quality education has been limited to those who live in the right ZIP code, leading to vast disparities that disproportionately impact African-American and Latino families. This decision presents an opportunity to dismantle barriers that prevent children of color from getting the education they need to succeed in the 21st century economy.”

“While our children struggle in schools without adequate technology, dedicated arts, music, library or physical education teachers, students several miles away attend school in modern buildings with the latest course offerings,” said Jamella and Bryant Miller, public school parents who live in Landsdowne and who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit. “The court’s decision means that it’s time for our elected officials to address these devastating disparities by providing the funding our schools require to provide a quality education to our children.”

Given the dire situation many schools face, lawyers on the case will work to bring it to trial as soon as possible. Many schools have yet to recover from the drastic funding cuts of 2011 and still lack basic resources, including updated textbooks, modern curricula and school counselors. Compounding this issue, only 6 percent of the state’s education budget is being distributed through the basic education funding formula, which was adopted by the legislature in 2015 in an attempt to distribute funds based on actual student needs. Finally, modest investments in education over the past few years remain inadequate and the legislature has abandoned setting any goal for adequate funding.

Maura McInerney, Esq., Appointed ELC’s New Legal Director

The Board and Staff of the Education Law Center are thrilled to announce that Maura McInerney has been named ELC’s Legal Director! Maura, an attorney at the Education Law Center since 2007, has over thirty years of litigation experience in the private and public sectors.  Maura’s appointment is an exciting new development as we continue to grow our work. She is a brilliant, hard-working, visionary, and compassionate attorney.  More information here.

Join the Education Law Center in supporting The Higher Education Access and Success for Homeless and Foster Youth Act and The Fostering Success in Higher Education Act of 2017

Join the Education Law Center in supporting The Higher Education Access and Success for Homeless and Foster Youth Act (HEASHFY) and The Fostering Success in Higher Education Act of 2017 (FSHEA). Passage of these new bills will mean that youth who are homeless and those who are from the foster care system will be able to enroll, afford, and graduate with a college degree.  Join us in supporting this important legislation by usoing these forms to send a letter of support  to your U.S. Senator and your U.S. Representative. Please download the letters and personalize them with local or state facts, as well as your own perspectives and experiences. Contact information for U.S. Senators may be found here.  Contact information for U.S. Representatives may be found here. Sign your organization on as a supporter of the bills by filling out this form.

The Education Law Center strongly supports the HEASHFY Act introduced this week by Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rob Portman (R-OH) and by Representatives Katherine Clark (D-5th/MA) and Don Young (R-AK).  “We know from our experience that youth experiencing homelessness and those in foster care confront unique barriers to accessing and completing higher education,” said Maura McInerney, Senior Attorney at the Education Law Center. “These two bills will be a game-changer for our youth because they address the core barriers they confront: from having verification of their independent status, to navigating the high cost of tuition, to ensuring housing between semesters.  Passage of these new bills will mean that youth who are homeless and those who are from the foster care system will be able to enroll, afford, and graduate with a degree.”

Specifically, the HEASHFY streamlines the application and verification process for financial aid for foster and homeless unaccompanied youth; clarifies eligibility for “independent” student status for homeless and foster youth; strengthens recruitment of these students; requires colleges and universities to designate single points of contact to assist homeless and foster youth to access and complete higher education and connects them with resources; provides housing resources during and between academic terms; and includes homeless and foster youth in the data collected by college access programs and identify ways they can further support these students; and

The FSHEA improves college access, retention, and completion rates for foster and homeless youth by substantially improving state capacity to support students by creating a new grant program in the Higher Education Act administered by the US Department of Education to establish or expand statewide initiatives that assist foster and homeless youth in enrolling and graduating from higher education and establishing formula grants to states based on a state’s share of foster youth and homeless youth among all 50 states and the District of Columbia.  The Act also develops “institutions of excellence” committed to serving foster and homeless youth from entrance to completion via robust support services and by covering the remaining cost of attendance beyond federal and state grants; and establishing intensive, statewide transition initiatives to increase the preparation and application of foster and homeless youth to higher education.

 

 

 

ELC Welcomes New Board Members, Board Officers, and Staff

Please join us in welcoming our

  • Two new Board members:   W. John Lee and Lezlie Madden,
  • Two new Board Officers:  Gretchen Santamour and Al Suh,
  • Five new members of ELC’s staff:  Reynelle Brown Staley, Paige Joki, Rabiyah Mujahid, Jackie Perlow, and Lizzy Wingfield.

Click here for more details about our growing team.

Education Law Center Challenges School District of Philadelphia’s Failure to Address Severe Bullying of Students with Disabilities

PHILADELPHIA, PA (July 27) Yesterday, the Education Law Center-PA (“ELC”) filed a Complaint with the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) alleging a systemic failure by the School District of Philadelphia (“District”) to promptly and appropriately address pervasive and severe bullying of students with disabilities.
“Sadly, students with disabilities are far more likely to experience bullying in school than their non-disabled peers,” said Alex Dutton, Independence Fellow at the Education Law Center. “Under federal law, these students are entitled to an educational program that enables them to make meaningful progress in school. Bullying of a student with a disability on any basis may interfere with this critical right, and school districts must promptly and appropriately address it.”
“The District’s failure to address bullying denies students with disabilities access to equal educational opportunities and is therefore discriminatory,” said ELC Senior Attorney Maura McInerney.
The Complaint alleges that in some cases, the District failed to respond to parents’ complaints about bullying for months and even years.
In one case, a third-grade child with disabilities was kicked and punched by classmates, causing a concussion, and repeatedly called derogatory names like “retard” and “dumb.”
Another nine-year-old child was repeatedly called “idiot” and “stupid” by her classmates, who told her they hoped she never came back to class.
The Complaint details how children who once loved school cried, shook, and begged not to go to school following months of pervasive bullying. Some of these parents asked the District to transfer their children to new schools, away from the bullying, but the District refused.
“What we see is that parents, having tried for months to get the District to do something, make the rational choice to keep their children home on days when they are demonstrating extreme aversion to school,” Dutton said. “Rather than intervene in accordance with federal anti-discrimination laws, the District’s response was to refer these families to Truancy Court, where the problem is framed as a failure of the family. This is not only discriminatory, it erodes any semblance of trust between District staff and the families they serve.”
Attorneys for the parents hope that the Complaint will result in the implementation of new District policies and training to ensure school staff promptly and properly intervene to resolve bullying of students with disabilities in an appropriate, non-discriminatory manner. ELC is also seeking individual relief for the named students.
The students in this Complaint are represented by ELC attorneys Alex Dutton and Maura McInerney. More information about the case and a link to download a copy of the Complaint are here.
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The Education Law Center-PA (“ELC”) is a non-profit, legal advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring that all children in Pennsylvania have access to a quality public education. Through legal representation, impact litigation, trainings, and policy advocacy, ELC advances the rights of vulnerable children, including children living in poverty, children of color, children in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, children with disabilities, English language learners, LGBTQ/NGC students, and children experiencing homelessness. For more information visit https://elc-pa.org/ or follow on Twitter @edlawcenterpa.

Education Law Center Condemns White Supremacist Violence in Charlottesville, VA

We stand with the school children we serve to condemn the bigotry, hate, and violence of white supremacists in Charlottesville. We are deeply saddened and outraged by these tragic events and know that the racism we witnessed in Virginia exists in other communities across our country. We cannot and will not tolerate it.

We are reminded that no person is born to hate — it is something that is taught. ELC pledges its commitment to call out and confront the growing racism and bigotry we are seeing in our schools: from the harassment of students based on race and religion, to the disproportionate suspension and expulsion of children of color and children with disabilities. We pledge to fight discrimination, to be a catalyst for promoting respect and tolerance, and to be a champion for true inclusion. We commit to continuing our work to end discriminatory practices in enrollment and learning opportunities, end gross racial disparities in school funding, and dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline.

America is better than this. We are better than this. We stand with parents, teachers, youth, community partners, and other civil rights advocates who are working tirelessly every day to condemn and combat racism and ensure that our children learn the power of diversity, equality, and true democracy.

Thank you for your partnership in this important work.

Deborah Gordon Klehr
Executive Director

 

ELC files PDE complaint to remedy deficiencies in transition of students from Early Intervention to Philadelphia elementary schools

ELC filed an administrative complaint with the PA Department of Education (“PDE”) on behalf of three individual children and all others similarly situated who have been deprived of smooth transitions to kindergarten or first grade in the School District of Philadelphia (“District”).  State and federal law mandates that children with disabilities must move from early intervention services to elementary school without disruption of the critical special education services to which they are legally entitled.  However, the District has failed to meet these requirements and ELC has asked PDE’s Bureau of Special Education to investigate and issue corrective action as necessary. Specifically, the District is required to (1) complete a re-evaluation of a child’s eligibility for services within 60 days of receiving signed parental consent, (2) provide a Re-evaluation Report to the parent at least 10 days prior to an IEP meeting, and (3) ensure that an IEP is completed within the 30 days of the IEP meeting. Additionally, federal law requires that children who have limited English proficiency are evaluated in their native language to ensure an accurate re-evaluation. If you or any families you know have had similar issues transitioning from early intervention to the District, please contact Sean McGrath at [email protected].  You can read a copy of ELC’s Complaint here.

 

 

ELC files OCR complaint to remedy bullying of students with disabilities in the School District of Philadelphia

On July 26, 2017, ELC filed a Complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) on behalf of students with disabilities in the School District of Philadelphia, alleging discrimination based on a systemic failure by the District to promptly and appropriately address severe and pervasive bullying of these students.  The Complaint chronicles the bullying of four students and explains how the District’s failure to respond to parent complaints, denying students the right to transfer, and referring students and parents to Truancy Court led to prolonged periods of pervasive bullying and the deprivation of free, appropriate public education to vulnerable students with disabilities.  ELC is seeking systemic reforms to remedy the District’s policies and practices.  You can read a copy of ELC’s Complaint here.

Refugee education lawsuit will cost Lancaster schools more than $600K next year

by Emily Previti, WITF

The city of Lancaster resettles a lot of refugees for a community of its size, and various stakeholders have long collaborated with the district for school-based programs designed to help entire families from this vulnerable population.

So when the School District of Lancaster was sued one year ago, officials argued that they — not the courts — knew best how to deal with their own students.

But Judge Edward G. Smith found last year that the School District of Lancaster had violated the federal Equal Educational Opportunities Act by delaying or denying enrollment of older refugee students and diverting them to a magnet school with less support for English Language Learners than the mainstream high school and its Newcomer Program designed for first-year ELLs (formerly known as the International School).

And now, the School District of Lancaster is looking at spending more than half a million dollars, less than 1 percent of its $208 million annual budget, as a result of the lawsuit, according to school officials.

Read the full article at Newsworks

Local advocates brace for changes in federal education civil rights policy

“I don’t think districts are off the hook from following civil rights laws.”  Deborah Gordon Klehr, ELC Executive Director

7/17/2017 by , published in The Philadelphia School Notebook

Local advocates and civil rights leaders are preparing to be more watchful in response to the decision under the Trump administration to scale back the U.S. Department of Education’s investigations of civil rights violations.

The department announced in early June that it is changing its approach to dealing with discrimination complaints.

Through an internal memo, Candice Jackson, acting head of the department’s Office for Civil Rights, stated that investigations into systemic discrimination will no longer be required and cases will be treated on an individual basis. Civil rights advocates, including those in Philadelphia, say the new protocol could spell disaster for the nation’s most vulnerable students. Continue reading →

OCDEL Releases Two New Policy Announcements to Address Exclusionary Discipline and Promote Inclusion in Early Childhood Learning Programs

ELC praises the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) for release of two new policy announcements that now make clear its commitment to decrease exclusionary discipline and increase inclusion in all its early childhood learning programs across Pennsylvania. With ELC’s leadership and support for public comments and extensive parent, provider, and community engagement, OCDEL identified shared values and vision across its programs, and released these two companion policies, effective Jul. 1, 2017. Continue reading →

City’s public schools, education beneficiaries of new state budget

by Stacy M. Brown, Philadelphia Tribune, Jul 8, 2017

After state lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a $32 billion budget that still has no defined plan in which to pay for it, many around the commonwealth have hailed the spending plan as a victory for public schools and for early childhood and special education.

Local lawmakers added that it’s a victory for Philadelphia area schools as well.

Continue reading →