By Grassroots DC, on October 12th, 2013 
Posted on behalf of Empower DC
Case Brought by Empower DC Alleges Discriminatory Impact of School Closures, Group Granted Discovery as Litigation Continues
Yesterday, Federal Court Judge James Boasberg found that plaintiffs have established sufficient facts to allow the bulk of their case alleging discrimination in the city’s pattern of public school closures to move forward.
The case of Shannon Smith et al Vs Kaya Henderson et al was filed last March by members of Empower DC as part of an effort to stop the closure of 15 DC Public Schools in low income communities of color. After a hearing on May10th, Judge Boasberg did not grant a temporary injunction and the closure of 13 DC Public Schools was allowed to go forward this fall, however the court has yet to issue a final ruling on the merits of the case, which has now survived the city’s motion to dismiss and will be litigated further.
Communities throughout the nation have mobilized to fight the closure of dozens of public schools, predominately in low income communities of color, in cities including Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore. To date, Empower DC’s suit is the first to have withstood dismissal, a point highlighted by Constitutional Law Professor Jamin Raskin, a member of the group’s legal team.
“This will be the first time that a federal court addresses evidence showing that a school system closed majority African-American schools as a response to under-enrollment when it never closed majority white schools as a response to under-enrollment. In this case, thousands of African-American and Hispanic students face school closings east of the River and only two white students find themselves in the same situation. Equal Protection simply does not permit government to impose discriminatory and selective burdens on minority communities even in pursuit of otherwise lawful objectives,” said Raskin.
In his 30-page opinion, Judge Boasberg dismissed some of the plaintiffs’ claims including those relating to compliance with the city’s statute requiring notice and input from Advisory Neighborhood Commissions, as well as those relating to disability laws. However all claims were dismissed without prejudice, a judgment which signifies there has not been a ruling on the merits of the claim and the claim could be brought in another court.
The key claims of the lawsuit have been upheld by Judge Boasberg, meaning that the plaintiffs provided sufficient evidence for litigation on those to continue. As a result, plaintiffs will be able to move forward with the discovery process during which the defendants, Chancellor Kaya Henderson and Mayor Vincent Gray, will have to make documents and data available to the plaintiffs.
The Judge’s opinion states, “The Court agrees with the District on the bulk of the Plaintiff’s claims. Nevertheless, the parents and guardians have alleged sufficient facts to state claims of discrimination under the three civil-rights provisions at the heart of their case: the Equal Protection Clause, Title VI, and the D.C. Human Rights Act.”
Attorney Johnny Barnes, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, stated, “We are not unhappy with this decision. While the Court dismissed, without prejudice, many of our claims, it left the heart of the case in place. We plan to vigorously litigate the equal protection, disparate treatment and D.C. Human Rights violations aspects of the case in the weeks and months to come. We look forward to probing the minds of those District officials who undertook the school closings which the Court indicated on the face of the facts merits deeper inquiry. While we continue to believe that the ANC notice and citizen participation counts of our Complaint are strong, notwithstanding the dismissal, without prejudice, we shall likely pursue those purely local matters in another court in a case already pending. We are pleased that we were able to present a brief that caused the central theme in our case to continue — unconstitutional discrimination in the closings — while every other lawsuit filed across the Country has not met with the same success.”
Empower DC’s members continue their campaign to save community schools, and the neighborhoods that depend upon them. “Our members never gave up their fight,” said Parisa Norouzi, Executive Director. “The Supreme Court has ruled in the past that a court is empowered to order that schools be reopened, where discrimination has been found. We continue to believe that it is possible schools like Ferebee-Hope Elementary will be reopened at the end of this fight – as would be the fitting tribute to the parents and students . . . → Read More: Key Elements of School Closure Lawsuit Move Forward
By Sarah Livingston, on September 11th, 2013 
This past June 20, two and a half years after taking office, Mayor Gray gave an address on “Next Steps” in his plan for public education at the Savoy Elementary School in Anacostia.
Simply put, his plan is to continue the “education reform” of charter schools that began 15 years ago, which mayoral control in 2007 was intended to speed up, into the future. Through three “overarching strategies” he expects to create, “as One City, a comprehensive system of schools that provides high quality options to all children.” He pointed to the “partnership” between Savoy ES and Thurgood Marshall Academy Charter School as a “snapshot of that future.”
Each of the strategies has a number of measures. But, the Mayor said, to reach the goal, “it is imperative that charters and DCPS collaborate” and that people give up favoring one education “reform philosophy” over another, such as advocating for DCPS or for charter schools. They must give up their “fear and distrust” and the “language of competition” and embrace instead “a new spirit of collaboration and problem-solving that ensures parents and students are first.”
Below are the three strategies and their measures, some of which are already in place:
1) Scale up
• by replicating successful programs so they serve more students such as linking a middle school with McKinley Tech High School and merging School Without Walls with Francis-Stevens preK-8 • by giving the chancellor authority to grant charters • lease more DCPS school buildings to charters • have DCPS and charter schools look together at city-wide data in making plans to fill gaps, expand, close or move schools.
2) Strengthen
• by raising the quality of pre-K programs with two new tools for quality and assessment • continue Race to the Top grants for training DCPS and charter school teachers in the Common Core Standards • build Career and Technical Academies in DCPS and charter schools in line with jobs in demand and the Five Year Economic Development Plan • develope a Graduation Pathways Project to get off-track students back on track • continue the OSSE pilot program offering DCPS and charter schools access to a consortium of special education service providers • expand Flamboyen Family Engagement Partnership to 26 more DCPS and charter schools • revamp the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula and • find ways to link LEA payments to enrollment throughout the year while also insisting on more equity between DCPS and charters in providing special education services and truancy prevention.
3) Simplify
• with a single lottery for DCPS and charters using a common application and a common enrollment deadline • release new standardized state-wide report cards from OSSE for all schools • create a Re-Engagement Center as a single source of information for dis-engaged youth to re-engage (deadline for blueprint, October 1, 2013) • use the Malcolm X Elementary School and Achievement Prep Charter School located in the same building as a model of two schools fully integrating the strength of a neighborhood school and the innovation of a charter school • create by legislation that has been submitted to the Council, the “option for charter schools to elect to provide a neighborhood preference” and for schools chartered by the chancellor to become schools-of-right in high need areas • allow for cross-LEA (Local Education Agency) feeder patterns in the coming school boundary revisions “where a DCPS school might feed into a charter school, or vice versa.”
This is what the Mayor is referring to when he says we must “stay the course.” It is clearly a plan to knit, link, merge, mush and subsume the city’s traditional public school district, into the charter school ethos of using public money to pay for the private dreams of people who want to run their own school. Or for the private dreams of those who wish to profit by the “steady revenue stream” of public tax dollars going into charter schools and back out to real estate companies, hedge funds or charter management organizations, among others.
But, is this what we the people want? Is this what we expect from our elected leaders who are responsible for using the power we have given them to spend our public dollars in the public, not private, interest?
By Guest Contributor, on August 12th, 2013 By Erich Martel Retired DCPS Social Studies Teacher
At the July 31st meeting of the DC State Board of Education, Ward 8 Member, Mr. Trayon White, said that he had attended the 2013 graduation of Thurgood Marshall Charter HS and wondered why there were so few graduates when four years earlier, as a 9th grade, the class was much larger. No one replied. It’s time that our public officials conducted an independent investigation of this scandal.
Quick Facts about Thurgood Marshall Public Charter School
Between 2007 and 2013, only 45% of starting 9th graders graduated four years later. Between 2007 and 2011, only 32% of the tested 10th graders are African-American males.
Over the past seven years, 2007-2013, Thurgood Marshall graduated 394 of the original 872 9th grade students enrolled. That’s a completion rate of 45.2%.
What happened to the other 478 starting 9th graders counted by OSSE? 336 or 38.5% were transferred before the 10th grade DC CAS testing roster was set. 142 or 16.3% were transferred after the 10th grade test, but before graduation.
Thurgood Marshall has trouble keeping African-American male students. According to gender data reported on OSSE’s DC CAS website, of the 462 10th graders tested in the 5 years from 2007 to 2011: – 314 or 67.97% were female. – 148 or 32.03% were male. In no year, did the % of male students exceed 33%.
Of the 88 Thurgood Marshall students tested in 2011, 62 (70.5%) were female, only 26 (29.5%) were male.
At each of Councilmember Catania’s recent ward education “conversations” and at most of the Council’s Education Committee hearings, Councilmember Catania and/or Councilmember Grosso contrasted Thurgood Marshall as an example of charter school success against DCPS failure. According to the numbers, Thurgood Marshall does not live up to that distinction.
Mayor Gray chose Thurgood Marshall Charter HS as the symbolic site to announce his proposed legislation to give the chancellor chartering authority.
The public has a right to know – and the Mayor, Council and State Board of Education Members should demand to know:
The reasons why these students were transferred; Their receiving schools; Their practice scores (DC BAS) were before transfer; Their official DC CAS scores after transfer; Whether they graduated with their class or cohort; Whether any of them dropped out;
And many other questions that public officials holding positions of public trust should feel obligated to answer and not cover up as they make public education policy.
By Liane Scott, on May 16th, 2013 
Last week, Empower DC and a number of DC Public School parents went to court to plead for an injunction to keep 15 more schools from being closed under Mayor Vince Gray and Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson’s consolidation plan.
According to Johnny Barnes, the lead attorney in the case, the case includes four complaints:
1) The school consolidation plan violates the law that requires equal protection to all District Citizens. “Hobson v Hansen made clear that the equal protection clause applies to DC through the 5th amendment: If you offer education to one student you have to offer to all.”
2) The school consolidation plan violates Title VI, which states that you can’t treat different classes of individuals disparately.
3) The school consolidation plan violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act both of which contend that when dealing with special education students, you have to design individually, not with a blanket plan to close a school.
4) The school consolidation plan is in violation of the District of Columbia’s Human Rights Act.
In a 31-page opinion, which analyzed each of plaintiffs’ claims, US District court Judge James E. Boasberg ruled against Empower DC, stating: “In this case, there is no evidence whatsoever of any intent to discriminate on the part of Defendants, who are actually transferring children out of weaker, more segregated, and under-enrolled schools.”
But according to Barnes, “The case is not over. The battle is just beginning…The ruling was on the injunction, not on the merits on the case. The govt has not even filed a response.” Barnes’ case centers around “protected classes” of race, residence, disability, he said, noting that 100 schools have been closed in DC since 1976, but not one in Ward 3, home to the city’s wealthiest residents.
Attorney Barnes and Jonetta Rose Barras discuss the judge’s ruling during the May 16, 2013 episode of We Act Radio’s Education Town Hall, which airs every Thursday at 11:00 AM. The full interview can be found at the link is posted below:
Jonetta Rose Barras and Johnny Barnes, Esq. on The Education Town Hall w/Thomas Byrd May 16 2013 by Education_Town_Hall on Mixcloud
Attorney Johnny Barnes and Empower DC plan to appeal the case. The courts ruling should be judged against the mounting evidence that DC’s School Consolidation and Reorganization Plan have not saved the District of Columbia money or improved school outcomes.
By Liane Scott, on May 8th, 2013 
For those of us who follow the debate over school reform/school closings in the District of Columbia, the story of River Terrace Elementary School is not unfamiliar. In December of 2010, Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson proposed that the school be closed due to under-enrollment. In January, a meeting was held at River Terrace Elementary to discuss the concerns of the community. Residents were angry about the decision to close the school and the lack of input from the community during the decision-making process. As you can see from the video below, many legitimate questions were raised; none of them have been answered.
River Terrace Elementary School is just one of the many Washington, DC public schools closed or threatened with closure since the reign of Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. Despite overwhelming community support, River Terrace was shut down. But the tide is turning. Although Rhee and her policies were in favor during the Administration of Mayor Adrian Fenty, the lack of improvement in test scores and the disruption to communities is causing many to think twice about reforming schools by closing them down.
The latest effort to stop DC public school closures is a lawsuit brought by Empower DC against the city to stop the latest round of school closings. The following excerpt from the Empower DC’s complaint explains their argument:
“The 2013-2014 ‘DCPS Consolidation and Reorganization Plan’ will have a startlingly disparate impact on students of color, special education students and students who live in low-income communities; and that disparate impact violates the United States Constitution, the D.C. Human Rights Law and applicable federal laws. There is a striking juxtaposition between how the Plan treats students “East of the Park,” those in predominantly minority, low-income communities, and yet spares students “West of the Park,” those in predominantly caucasian, affluent communities. The same is true with respect to how the Plan treats schools housing special education students. School closures are not immune to judicial scrutiny.”
Empower DC has their first day in court this Friday, May 10, 2013. Join them and the plaintiff’s in the case for a rally on the courthouse steps. Details follow:
Show Your Support for the Lawsuit To STOP DC PUBLIC SCHOOL CLOSURES Friday, May 10, 2013 US District Court, 333 Constitution Avenue, NW Rally @ 9:30 AM / Hearing @ 11:00 AM Pack the Hearing Room #19 For more information about Empower DC’s Public Education Campaign, contact daniel@empowerdc.org.
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