English Learner Students v. Providence School District

A Superior Court judge has found that the Council of Elementary and Secondary Education and RIDE violated the rights of students who were English Language Learners by providing them less support than the law requires.

RILS and the ACLU of RI have filed a brief in R.I. Superior Court seeking to overturn a decision issued last year by the Council of Elementary and Secondary Education that the groups claim violate the rights of English Language Learners.

Rhode Island Legal Services and the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island have today filed a lawsuit in R.I. Superior Court challenging a decision issued this month by the Council of Elementary and Secondary Education (CESE) that upholds a method of providing services to English Language Learners (EL) that the two groups claim clearly violates federal and state law and significantly shortchanges the educational rights of EL students.

UPDATE 1/28/20: The Council affirmed the ruling, but directed the Commissioner of Education "to begin the process of revising current ELL regulations." Here is the statement from the organizations that had sought rejection of the ruling:

A U.S. Department of Justice memo, formally released yesterday as a result of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of RI and RI Legal Services (and also obtained independently by the Boston Globe), contains a blistering critique of the Providence school district’s (PSD) treatment of English language learner (EL) students.  But, the ACLU and RILS said today, release of the memo does more than document a systematic violation of EL students’ rights by the PSD. Specifically, it also highlights a blatant abuse of the Access to Public Records Act by the Providence school district, and underlines the RI Department of Education’s (RIDE) own failure to require PSD’s compliance with federal and state law obligations regarding the legal rights of EL students.

RILS and the ACLU of RI have appealed a state Commissioner of Education ruling upholding the Providence School District’s method of providing services to English Language Learners (EL), but which the two groups claim clearly violates federal and state law and significantly shortchanges the educational rights of EL students. In essence, the groups charge, RIDE has interpreted the state’s regulations governing EL instruction to provide less support to those students than federal law itself requires.

RI Legal Services and the ACLU of Rhode Island have filed a formal complaint with the state Department of Education, charging the Providence School District with violating various laws and regulations designed to provide appropriate educational services to students who are also English Language Learners (ELL).

Attorneys for the ACLU of Rhode Island and R.I. Legal Services (RILS) today filed a lawsuit against the Providence School District for hiding information about its extensive violations of the rights of English Language Learner (EL) students that led to a settlement agreement between the school system and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) more than a year ago.