Office for Civil Rights Goes After Tracking in New Hampshire and Language Access in Pennsylvania

Last month, OCR reached two significant settlement agreements.  The first was with New Hampshire’s Manchester School District, School Administrative Unit #37.  The settlement agreement was in response to tracking and unequal access to college and career preparatory courses for black and Latino students.  The most stark disparities were in the district’s AP courses. "Despite the enrollment of 381 black students and 596 Latino students at the high schools, only 17 seats in AP classes went to black students and only nine seats in AP classes went to Latino students, out of the total of 434 seats in AP courses. At two of the three high schools, there were no Latino students enrolled in the AP courses."  OCR found a number of structural barriers in the district's policies that lead to these disparities.  The district agreed to several steps to address the disparities, the most notable of which were:

• Identify and implement strategies subject to OCR review and approval to increase student participation in its higher-level learning opportunities, particularly for underrepresented groups such as black, Latino and ELL students.
• Consider increasing the numbers and types of courses, adding more teachers qualified to teacher higher-level courses and revising selection criteria for enrollment in higher level learning opportunities if these are barriers to increased participation.
• Specifically assess the impact of assigning students to academic “levels” upon arrival at the high schools on their participation in higher-level learning opportunities, and consider eliminating the system of student assignment to levels or altering the current criteria or method of implementation.
• Specifically consider eliminating the GPA and class rank penalties associated with withdrawing from higher-level courses.
• Provide increased support for students enrolled in higher level learning opportunities through counseling, peer support groups and tutoring.

A copy of the resolution letter can be found here. A copy of the agreement can be found here.

The other settlement agreement was with the Hazleton, Pa., Area School District.  OCR found that English Language Learner (ELL) students in the district did not have access to equal educational opportunities and that the district was not adequately notifying their parents of information made available to other parents in English.  More than 10 percent of Hazleton's students are ELLs, which would suggest a scale that should have allowed the district to operate a more robust program, but OCR found that the district was inappropriately excusing students from the English language development program, not providing the required instructional time for over 240 elementary school ELL students, not evaluating the effectiveness of its program, and not using an effective system to identify and communication with limited English proficient parents.  The district agreed to take the following steps:

• Ensuring that students whose primary home language is not English will be promptly assessed for English language proficiency to determine eligibility for placement in an English language development program and that students will not be improperly exempted from assessment;
• Assessing students who were improperly exempted from language proficiency assessment to determine whether they may be eligible to receive English language development services;
• Conducting a comprehensive evaluation of the English language development program at each school level to determine its effectiveness and making modifications to address areas where the program is not meeting the district’s goals;
• Developing and implementing policies and procedures to ensure that LEP parents are notified, in a language they understand, of school activities that are called to the attention of other parents; and
• Providing training to appropriate staff on procedures for identifying language-minority parents and on policies and procedures for serving language minority parents.

A copy of the resolution letter can be found here. A copy of the agreement can be found here.