La. BESE Talks to Itself About John White’s Two Lawsuits | deutsch29

La. BESE Talks to Itself About John White’s Two Lawsuits | deutsch29:

La. BESE Talks to Itself About John White’s Two Lawsuits

This post features an email from Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary (BESE) president James Garvey to other BESE members concerning the lawsuits,White vs Finney, White vs. Deshotels et al.  and the December 15, 2015, judgment of Deshotels vs. White.

Garvey’s email also references this April 21, 2016, USDOE FERPA guidance letterwritten in response to John White.

(I must note the irony in White seeking FERPA guidance given that in 2013, White had sent student social security numbers to be stored with inBloom– along with ethnicity and race. Except he did not publicly admit to sending SS#s– inBloom clarified it. And White stated that the inBloom relationship was over. Except it wasn’t.)

Below is Garvey’s email, dated June 03, 2016, in which he does not stop to consider that individuals are seeking detailed data from LDOE because they don’t trust White– the same guy who tried to pass off a fabricated voucher report to the full BESE boardjust three months ago.

No trust, for good reason.

Note that Garvey focuses on the Deshotels vs. White judgment and resulting White vs. Deshotels et al. lawsuit. He doesn’t address details of White vs. Finney, though he could be alluding to parts of it.

From: “James_Garvey@hmhlp.com” <James_Garvey@hmhlp.com>
To: “Shan N. Davis” <Shan.Davis@LA.GOV>, “Kira Orange Jones” <Kira.OrangeJones@LA.GOV>, “Holly Boffy” <Holly.Boffy@LA.GOV>, “Kathy Edmonston” <Kathy.Edmonston@LA.GOV>, “Gary Jones” <Gary.Jones@LA.GOV>, “Sandy Holloway” <Sandy.Holloway@LA.GOV>, “Tony Davis” <Tony.Davis@LA.GOV>, “doris.voitier@sbpsb.org” <doris.voitier@sbpsb.org>, “Thomas Roque” <Thomas.Roque@LA.GOV>, “Lurie Thomason” <Lurie.Thomason@LA.GOV>
Subject: FOIA Suits

BESE Members,

I have received from several of you questions about the recent 2 suits that were filed by the Louisiana DOE regarding FOIA requests and about the 

La. BESE Talks to Itself About John White’s Two Lawsuits | deutsch29:

Whitewashing ‪Muhammad Ali‬: Our Racist Past, Present, and Future – the becoming radical

Whitewashing ‪Muhammad Ali‬: Our Racist Past, Present, and Future – the becoming radical:

Whitewashing ‪Muhammad Ali‬: Our Racist Past, Present, and Future

Throughout my ‪social media connections, in the wake of ‪Muhammad Ali‬’s death, a warning and a prediction were common: do not allow ‪Muhammad Ali‬ to be whitewashed and watch as people whitewash ‪Muhammad Ali‬.

On ESPN radio, during a show soliciting people to call in about ‪Muhammad Ali‬, I listened as George Foreman shared an anecdote about ‪Muhammad Ali‬ and Foreman discussing God, reaching the conclusion that ‪Muhammad Ali‬ transcended race.

Muhammad Ali‬ did not transcend race. A black man, he was race. He punched racism in its cowardly face.

This whitewashing of ‪Muhammad Ali‬ has a long history, in fact. It is what we do in the U.S. to mask our racist past, to deny our racist present, and to insure our racist future.

In 2012, Michael Ezra explained: “[Muhammad Ali’s] emergence as boxing’s eminence grise, one of the country’s most beloved figures, tells us much about how Americans construct the past to make sense of the present.”

After outlining Muhammad Ali’s tumultuous fame and infamy, Ezra concluded about the resurrected and recreated Muhammad Ali: “But Ali’s return to glory has come at a price; it is predicated on the whitewashing of his past and the silencing of his voice.”

Under the weight of disease and now shrouded in death, Muhammad Ali has been subsumed by the very demon of the U.S. that he chose to fight with dire consequences to himself and his career as a boxer.

Muhammad Ali has been reduced to a caricature to suit white America in the same way Martin Luther King Jr. has been trivialized as a passive radical.

“Transcending race,” “post-racial,” and “I don’t see race” are codes that blind of progressive racism, of what Ta-Nehisi Coates calls “elegant racism.”

The most vile examples came when Muhammad Ali died and mostly, but not exclusively, right-wing political leaders—who are racists, who court racists, who are xenophobes, who court xenophobes, who are Islamophobic, and who court Islamophobes—offered effusive praise Whitewashing ‪Muhammad Ali‬: Our Racist Past, Present, and Future – the becoming radical:

CURMUDGUCATION: Pearson & Irony Overload

CURMUDGUCATION: Pearson & Irony Overload:
Pearson & Irony Overload

Here's an article about a familiar topic in education-- "Why Teachers Are Leaving the Classroom, and the Effort To Get More To Stay." True, the topic has been hit pretty thoroughly, but one more piece on the topic can't hurt and perhaps this particular website reaches a different audience than-- wait. What?

Yes, this article about the teacher shortage is on LearnED, the website covering News About Learning and operated by Pearson. Yes, that Pearson. The All Your Education Business Are Belong To Us Pearson.

So. What does Pearson know about the teacher shortage and how to fix it? Well, strap on your irony impact helmets, boys and girls. This ride is short, but it's designed for maximum psychic whiplash.

The unnamed writer opens with a close-up on Jahana Hayes, National Teacher of the Year, a woman with a story so inspiring that she could give John King a run for his money. Hayes reminds us that while students are the whole point, "recruiting, supporting and retaining culturally competent and diverse educators cannot be overlooked."

Next up-- Dr. Kathy McKnight, Principal Director of Research at Pearson, Center for Educator Learning and Effectiveness (not this one, but this one). She's a co-author of a December, 2014, report from Pearson entitled Creating Sustainable Teacher Career Pathways: A 21st Century Imperative which is seventy-some pages of history and proposals for some alternate universe. Here's one swell pull quote: 

One study concluded that the TFA and Teaching Fellows programs represent two examples of program models for recruiting, selecting, training and supporting teachers that can address teacher shortages in secondary math within high-need schools without decreasing student achievement.

The report also likes the idea of "neo-diffeentiated roles" and differentiated pay and new career ladders, as well as performance-based compensation (aka merit pay).

Here's what strikes me as weird(er) about this report-- by December of 2014, Pearson had already released, with honcho Michael Barber's personal seal of approval right on it, the big report on the CURMUDGUCATION: Pearson & Irony Overload:

Schools Matter: The Spellings Privatization Machine Shifts Gears

Schools Matter: The Spellings Privatization Machine Shifts Gears:

The Spellings Privatization Machine Shifts Gears

With some uncertainty as to how long it will take for North Carolina citizens to ride her out of the state on a rail, Margaret Spellings is wasting no time implanting Koch Brothers' stooges into what has been one of the best public university systems in the nation.  If Spellings is left to do what she was put in charge to do, we will witness the replacement of public servants with crony profiteers, privatizers, and fascist hacks who circulate among the power centers of the Old Confederacy.

As in Cecil Staton, who Spellings recently named as Chancellor of East Carolina University:

As a five-term Republican member of the Georgia Senate, Staton moved millions in taxpayer dollars to Mercer, the private university that employed him. He authored a voter ID bill that a federal judge likened to a "poll tax." He was also notorious for pushing police crackdowns on immigrants.

Most bizarrely, he was involved in an email scandal, in which the then-senator allegedly used afake account and name to spread attacks about a political rival.

"We know Ms. Spellings was a political appointee who has had nothing really to do with advancing academia," N.C. NAACP president William Barber told Ball. "Now it seems birds of a feather flock together."

And if there are no positions to fill, then she is intent to let her handlers create new positions, as with this newly created position:

So it begins: Yesterday, new UNC president Margaret Spellings announced the appointment of Andrew Kelly to a newly created position called "senior vice president for strategy and policy." The school will pay him $245,000 a year.

A UNC release notes that Kelly was a research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute from 2002-2005, and returned to AEI in 2009 as a research fellow in education policy studies. He Schools Matter: The Spellings Privatization Machine Shifts Gears:

Avoid the Next Trump University: 6 Signs a School Is a Scam

Avoid the Next Trump University: 6 Signs a School Is a Scam:

Avoid the Next Trump University: 6 Signs a School Is a Scam

The reviews are damning. Students who enrolled at Trump University, a for-profit profit real estate training program that went out of business in 2010, called the program “an absolute, utter waste,” “extremely deceptive,” and “useless,” according to complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission and published by Gizmodo.

Former Trump University employees — which wasn’t a true university, as it didn’t award degrees — were even more pointed in their criticism. Ronald Schnackenberg, who worked as a sales manager for the school, called it a “fraudulent scheme” that “preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money,” in court testimony related to a lawsuit filed by former students.

Fees for the training program, which promised to teach people how to flip properties and become successful real estate investors, started at $1,495 and ran as high as $34,995. Employees claim they were told to target vulnerable people and encourage students to max out credit cards to pay the tuition. Some instructors apparently had no experience in real estate.

Disgruntled students in California, Florida, and New York are now seeking damages from Trump University. Whether they’ll eventually get some of their money back remains to be seen, but in the meantime, there are some valuable lessons for the rest of us in their story. The people who signed up for classes with Trump University really believed they were going to get something valuable out of the experience, as do most people who decide to pursue some education or training, whether it’s a one-day seminar or a four-year degree. Unfortunately, there are people who are willing to take advantage of your desire to make a better life for yourself. Here are some warning signs that the school or training program you’re considering is actually a scam.

1. The school isn’t accredited

A student on a college campus | Source: iStock

If you’re hoping to earn a degree, make sure the school you’re attending is accredited by an organization recognized by the U.S. Department of Education or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, (CHEA), Tim Willard, a spokesman for CHEA, told U.S. News and World Report. Accreditation ensures the school meets basic standards. If you earn credits from an unaccredited school they may not transfer to other colleges, while employers may view degrees from these schools with skepticism.

2. You don’t have to do any work

According to John Bear, an expert on diploma mills, there are more than 500 schools selling fake degrees online. These schools let you “earn” a degree by forking over cash in exchange for an impressive-sounding piece of paper. They might offer credit for life experience and not require you to take any classes. (While some legitimate schools do offer some credit in exchange for your work experience, you won’t be able to earn your entire degree that way.)  “If you’re getting a degree without doing any work, chances are you’re dealing with a diploma mill,” the FTC warned.

3. Pushy sales tactics

Testimony in the Trump University lawsuit revealed that employees were encourage to use high-pressure sales Avoid the Next Trump University: 6 Signs a School Is a Scam:

Failing the Test: UCLA’s John Rogers on the Struggle for Democratic School Improvement - CAPITAL & MAIN

Failing the Test: UCLA’s John Rogers on the Struggle for Democratic School Improvement - CAPITAL & MAIN:

Failing the Test: UCLA’s John Rogers on the Struggle for Democratic School Improvement

Failing the Test: UCLA’s John Rogers on the Struggle for Democratic School Improvement - CAPITAL & MAIN:

Big Education Ape: Failing the Test: A New Series Examines Charter Schools- CAPITAL & MAIN - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/06/failing-test-new-series-examines_3.html

Want Smart Kids? Make Sure They Learn to Do This | Inc.com

Want Smart Kids? Make Sure They Learn to Do This | Inc.com:

Want Smart Kids? Make Sure They Learn to Do This

There's a brain-building skill schools are teaching less and less.

 If you have kids in school, how much time do they spend learning cursive handwriting? Probably not much, especially if they're beyond first grade. The Common Core standards dominating education these days only call for teaching legible handwriting, and only in kindergarten and first grade. After that, students spend their time learning to use keyboards.

That might seem like a good thing. Mastering computers and technology are the make-or-break skills of the 21st century, after all. But a growing body of scientific evidence seems to show that the all the older people lamenting the death of penmanship are on to something. Whether or not they actually do much writing by hand in later life, learning to write by hand and do it well--in cursive as well as print--has measurable benefits for kids' brains.

Here are just a few:

1. Children who learn to hand write also learn to read better.

"Children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they also remain better able to generate ideas and retain information," writes psychologist and author Maria Konnikova in an article in The New York Times. And many people, children and adults alike, have experienced the ironic phenomenon where writing something down stores it in your memory so that you no longer need the note you've just written. It works best if you write whatever it is by hand.

2. Writing cursive activates a particular part of your brain.

Recent research has shown that typing, printing letters, and writing them in cursive active three different portions of the brains. For your children to have fully active brains, they should do all three.

3. It increases creativity.

A study at the University of Washington showed that children who compose text by hand rather than on a keyboard not only wrote more quickly but also more ideas as a result. And what type of handwriting you use does matter. The College Board found that students who wrote the essay portion of their SAT tests in cursive did slightly better than those who printed their letters.

4. They learn fine motor skills.

Classes that teach children fine motor skills and how to use our incredibly complex Want Smart Kids? Make Sure They Learn to Do This | Inc.com:

Los Angeles Times editors get it – Philanthropies don’t have all the answers about education | Bluegrass Institute | June 3, 2016

Los Angeles Times editors get it – Philanthropies don’t have all the answers about education | Bluegrass Institute | June 3, 2016:

Los Angeles Times editors get it – Philanthropies don’t have all the answers about education

The Los Angeles Times just ran a very good article concerning the failure of a number of education programs that have received massive funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The title says a lot:

“Editorial | Gates Foundation failures show philanthropists shouldn’t be setting America’s public school agenda”

This is a solidly thought out article that is worth consideration. In fact, there is only one area of this editorial that I would question. That section talks about the Common Core State Standards, saying:

“When the standards are implemented well, which isn’t easy, they ought to develop better reading, writing and thinking skills.”

The Times makes some big assumptions with this, ignoring a growing trend of data from Kentucky that says the practical potential of Common Core remains largely unproved, at best.

There are several problems with the Times’ assumption that Common Core will work better.

First, no research really shows that massive implementation of the Common Core State Standards really will improve reading, writing and thinking skills. The standards simply have not been previously implemented in large, state-sized education organizations before. Common Core remains an experiment.

Common Core also includes math standards. The Times is curiously silent about whether those math standards are of any value what-so-ever.

Certainly, Kentucky, which has by far the most experience with Common Core of any state, provides at best a cautionary tale about the possible potential of these new standards. Especially for the state’s various special student groups such as racial minorities and students with learning disabilities, this blog and The Hechinger Report – to name just two very recent sources – make it clear that Kentucky’s academic performance is faltering, at best, under the new standards (see for example: here, here and here for just a very few of the most recent articles in this area. Search this blog with terms like “EXPLORE,” “PLAN,” “NAEP,” “KPREP” and “Effective High School Graduation Rate” to find a lot more disturbing information)..

Second, implementing Common Core might not just be difficult – it might not actually be possible or at least Los Angeles Times editors get it – Philanthropies don’t have all the answers about education | Bluegrass Institute | June 3, 2016:

@WhiteHouse BATs Request a White House Conference on EDUCATION & EQUITY - Badass Teachers Association #whitehouse

Badass Teachers Association:

The Badass Teachers Association

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:  

MARLA KILFOYLE, Executive Director BATs

MELISSA TOMLINSON, Asst. Executive Director BATs 

contact.batmanager@gmail.com

516-987-4405

BATs Request a White House Conference on EDUCATION & EQUITY

 The Badass Teachers Association, representing a network of over 70,000 teachers and education activists throughout the United States, formally request a White House Conference on Education and Equity.

Our organization stands firmly against the serious harm being perpetrated to public education by both corporate privatization and right wing fiscal starvation policies.  The current political rhetoric strengthens our resolve to reclaim the rights of all children to a free public education.     

We focus on the many reasons poverty is claiming the lives and health of our children, and we focus on keeping our K-12 schools from privatization and the target of under-funding.  

Our organization  proposes that a White House Conference be initiated immediately.  Like much of the American landscape, Public K-12 Education requires infrastructure overhaul that have been installed to insert barriers that inhibit authentic learning. We do not accept the mendacity that racial and ethnic minorities must fail.

We witness what happens when social justice safeguards are removed by forces that hide inside school choice and free market de-regulation.  Public school teachers are this country’s first responders against the effects of poverty. 

School privatization profits from systemic racism and use their profits to build higher barriers and deeper inequities.  Testing monopolies and “business” style management practices now glean millions exploiting our children and disregard our students with special needs and English Language Learners.  These efforts must not go unchecked. 

Some of these barriers we’ve revealed as part of the Reform/privatization agenda include:

Monopoly control over ill-suited testing; over-testing;denied access to special needs and ELL services;deterioration of facilities that threaten teacher and student health; targeting teachers for speaking out about inequity;placement of the unqualified and inexperienced TFA personnel into districts;school closings/turnovers/receiverships in districts with high minority enrollment for the purpose of   gentrification; funds digressed from public education into charter programs with no accountability;  ‘test and punish’ replacing  humane classroom management practices we believe is child abuse and feeds the school to prison pipeline;  monopoly control over our state licensing, certification  and professional development; teacher bullying; micromanagement of teacher schedules;marginalizing arts curricula;destruction of our library system; subcontracting security, substitute and transportation functions  without concern for qualifications or student safety; Student data manipulation and the selling of student data; Democratically- elected school boards have been taken over by authoritarian privatizers alleging “the business model” and denying, predominantly communities of color, their voting rights as well as their right to democracy;  Acceptance of a disrepute ‘VAM,’ formula to tie teacher evaluation to student test scores.

All these issues and more have become systemic because of educational inequityand the specious, facile blame on teachers and teacher quality. 

This is why we need your support for a White House Conference on Education and Equity.

A White House Conference on Education and Equity will create a sanctioned environment for experienced teachers to posit infrastructural changes that will remove barriers that perpetuate racial, ethnic and societal failure.    

A White House Conference on Education and Equity will bring worldwide attention to our concern that our democracy is being undermined at its heart and its roots. It will give leaders opportunity to fully understand why we must invest in our children as precious resources as part of our democratic infrastructure.  Importantly, it will replace the world view perpetrated by privatizers that our schools are crumbling, and that our teachers, and children, are failures.

Our White House Conference will invite scholarly papers on a list of concerns we have related because the breadth and scope of these issues demand the widest possible support from our brightest and best academic, child welfare, anti-trust, child development, health, nutrition, social justice, technology, journalism, labor, cultural resource, architecture, and grassroots civil rights advocates. These papers will anchor our discussion through the lens of education and equity.  Our plan is to examine extant conditions and recommend new paradigms.  We will invite speakers and participants who are willing to work with us to make Public Education and Equity continue as the foundation of our democratic ideals.

White House Conference Proposal

A White House Conference is the first step.  Equity and Public Education go hand in hand and can never again be separated.  Our public education system is the heart of our country and the foundation of its infrastructure.  Reclamation will need to reflect this as much damage has been done to our students, our communities, and to our profession.  Our profession must move forward.

It is now up to American Public School Teachers to reclaim the mission and intent of American public education from attempts to corporatize, unfund and privatize our schools.  It is time to come together to restore the democratic values and move forward by reclaiming our independence from the yokes of privatization and political gentrification.  Our founding fathers left a stain of racism that has been allowed to fester because the values of their ancestors could not be removed.   We believe that only through education can the stain of racism and ignorance be finally eliminated. Our profession is unique to democracy and our profession must be freed from ancient colonial biases.  Our healing and restoration must be anchored in the promise of democracy -- not by factions and disaggregation created by profiteers, but with the spirit of unity and a belief that our students are our foundation and our future.

A White House Conference will focus on teachers, students, parents, community, and teaching.  We will learn from each other how to rescind the damage.  We will rely on each other's knowledge as we no longer will be forced to buy into what does not work for our students.

We reclaim our professionalism.

Leaders in Education, Education Law, Economics, Civil Rights, Environmental Policy, Child Development, Psychology, Architecture, Health, Labor Law and Journalism will be invited to submit papers that will be reviewed for task force organization and presentation.   The corporate business community must be relegated to a benign position and no longer be in control, guide or influence the work of educators. 

Lobbyists and agents of organizations that have lobbied for NCLB, RTtT and profit makers behind many aspects of the new ESSA will not be invited.

These include but are not limited to:  Teach for America, Eli Broad Educational leadership, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Walton Foundation, and Pearson Education or its affiliates.  Any member of the American Legislative Education Council or its affiliates, or any employee or agent of the Democrats for Education Reform, Wall Street Hedge Fund Managers, individuals such as Campbell Brown, Michelle Rhee, Right to Work supporters, Tea Party, Heritage Foundation, or allies of the Koch Brothers. This White House conference recognizes the intent of these organizations/individuals and the parts they have played in deforming public education.  It will be up to the discretion of the White House conference planning committee to screen all who aspire to submit papers to the conference. 

Focus on Reclaiming Infrastructure through Communication, Advocacy and Understanding

Teachers need a broad and overarching understanding that a clean sweep of the laws that force local education agencies to dedicate public funds to privatization schemes will be relegated to the past.  Anti-Trust Laws must be examined and enforced.  Civil Rights and Censorship rules that govern education policy must be reviewed for their moral governance.  Policies and practices that have been forced upon public education and teachers must now be examined for their impact and moved out of the sphere of influence that govern our schools.
We welcome your response to our request, and attach our proposed framework, as well as our Amicus Brief in the Friedrichs vs. CTA Supreme Court case, for your further consideration.  http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/14-915_bsac_Brittany_Alexander.pdf

  It is imperative that we work together to start to rebuild the K-12 infrastructure.


Sincerely yours,

The BADASS TEACHERS ASSOCIATION

Marla Kilfoyle, Executive Director The Badass Teachers Association

Melissa Tomlinson, Asst. Executive Director The Badass Teachers Association

The Board of Directors – Wilma de Soto,  Dr. Denisha Jones, Terry Kalb, Gus Morales, and Priscilla Sanstead

Steering Committee Directors – Steven Singer, Dr. Michael Flanagan, Tina Andres, Sue Goncarovs, Kathie Wing-Larsyn, Stacy Holcombe, Roberta Reid, Becca Ritchie, Kathleen Jeskey, and  Jamy Brice-Hyde,

Continue Reading: Badass Teachers Association:

What I Hope To Tell My Kids About Muhammad Ali [Be Great] | The Jose Vilson

What I Hope To Tell My Kids About Muhammad Ali [Be Great] | The Jose Vilson:

What I Hope To Tell My Kids About Muhammad Ali [Be Great]

On any given day during the NBA series, my students shout out any number of stats and names, solidifying their argument for who reigns supreme as of that specific game. After Oklahoma City Thunder superstar Kevin Durant dropped 29 points in a summer game in 2011, turquoise-blue and hot orange became the wave, chipping at the LeBron James vs. Kobe Bryant duopoly that held the debates then. Nowadays, some kids flaunt goldenrod and blue, shooting threes in their gym periods from inappropriate distances, yelling “CURRY!” even as the basketball thuds against the backboard. A few of them still flex three fingers to their temples after making an ill-advised fade-away a la Carmelo Anthony, a hopeful sign that the Knicks franchise isn’t completely comatose. As the NBA finals wrap up and we get into the heart of the MLB season (note bene: most of my students are Dominican), there’ll be plenty of baseball talk too. The Red Sox still have a Dominican stronghold thanks to David Ortiz and Yankees fans still rep Derek Jeter two years after he officially announced his retirement.

So when I woke up this morning to the news of boxing legend Muhammad Ali’s passing, one of my first thoughts was  What I Hope To Tell My Kids About Muhammad Ali [Be Great] | The Jose Vilson:

Education Law Center | LAWSUIT ENFORCES DUE PROCESS RIGHTS OF STUDENTS IN NJ CHARTER SCHOOLS

Education Law Center | LAWSUIT ENFORCES DUE PROCESS RIGHTS OF STUDENTS IN NJ CHARTER SCHOOLS:

LAWSUIT ENFORCES DUE PROCESS RIGHTS OF STUDENTS IN NJ CHARTER SCHOOLS

THE EDUCATION LAW CENTER STOPS NORTH STAR--A CHARTER SCHOOL THAT CHRIS CHRISTIE SAYS IS DOING "GOD'S WORK"--FROM BOOTING OUT A SPECIAL EDUCATION STUDENT Bob Braun's Ledger - https://www.facebook.com/bobbraunsledger/

An Administrative Law Judge has ordered the North Star Academy Charter School in Newark to return a middle school student to school after a two-month suspension for a violation of North Star’s discipline code. The order issued by Administrative Law Judge Thomas Betancourt provides critical protections for charter school students who are excluded from school while they undergo special education evaluations.

The lawsuit underscores the express mandate in NJ law affording students in charter schools the same due process protections from suspension or expulsion as would apply to students in every public school. Charter schools such as North Star can adopt their own codes of conduct, which are often highly prescriptive, but they are prohibited from imposing unreasonable or overly harsh disciplinary penalties for infractions.

The North Star student, T.D., was suspended from the charter school for an incident that occurred in December 2015, pending a hearing before North Star’s Board of Trustees. At the Board hearing, T.D.’s mother requested that the school’s child study team evaluate T.D. to determine eligibility to receive special education services. The Board issued a written decision, suspending T.D. for a total of 56 school days and permitting a return to school on March 22, 2016. The Board also granted T.D.’s mother’s request, agreeing to provide T.D. with a special education evaluation.

At the end of T.D.’s suspension, the child study team had completed a portion of the special education evaluation. But North Star claimed that as part of the evaluation the child study team required psychiatric clearance, which had not yet been provided. By letter, the Board advised T.D.’s parents that due to the ongoing special education evaluation, they had decided to extend T.D.’s suspension for an additional 38 school days, through May 20.

Education Law Center represented T.D. and T.D.’s mother in the lawsuit against North Star, part of the New York City-based Uncommon Schools charter chain, claiming a violation of T.D.’s due process rights.  

ELC and petitioners filed a motion for emergent relief as well as a due process petition, arguing that North Star lacked authority to extend T.D.’s suspension beyond the 56-day period imposed by the Board without evidence that T.D. committed an additional code of conduct violation.

Judge Betancourt found that, although T.D. was provided with home instruction throughout the suspension, an extended suspension would cause the student to suffer irreparable harm as T.D. would Education Law Center | LAWSUIT ENFORCES DUE PROCESS RIGHTS OF STUDENTS IN NJ CHARTER SCHOOLS:

Big Education Ape: When “doing God’s work” means firing half a school’s teachers | - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/05/when-doing-gods-work-means-firing-half.html