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School district being investigated for discriminatory treatment of Latinx, ‘LEP’ parents 

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District allegedly failed to provide qualified, trained interpreters during meetings in district where 35-percent of students come from primarily Spanish-speaking homes

– This week, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced that it is investigating the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District on the grounds of discrimination against Latinx and Limited English Proficient (LEP) parents and community members.

The Office for Civil Rights will examine allegations of discriminatory treatment of Latinx and Limited English Proficient (LEP) parents and community members for being barred from meaningful participation in school board meetings. In a district where 35-percent of all students come from homes where Spanish is the primary language, the district failed to provide qualified, trained interpreters during meetings.

Without interpretation services, LEP parents and community members could not participate in a school board advisory committee on school closures. The advisory committee has now recommended the closure of Georgia Brown Elementary School, the school with the largest percentage of Latinx students in the district, where nearly three-fourths of its student population are Latinx.

“The school district’s deliberate negligence and purpose-driven pain towards the Latinx community in Paso Robles should not be ignored, whether it’s their failing to provide Spanish language committee forms or their desire to place profits over people in their closure of Georgia Brown Elementary school site—a school in a majority minority district,” said Yessenia Echevarria, co-founder of Paso People’s Action. “The damage they’ve caused will have long-term impacts on the community and affect everything from educational equity to political participation.”

The investigation was opened as a response to a complaint filed by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. on behalf of Paso People’s Action.

The complaint urges the school district to develop an advisory committee on school closures where all parents are able to participate, with proper language accessibility, and engage in a decision making process that includes the Spanish-speaking parents of students enrolled in the district.

“The exclusion of Latinx and Limited English Proficient parents and community members from participating in school board meetings is a blatant violation of civil rights, particularly in a school district where Latinx students make up more than 56% of the total enrollment,” said Deborah Escobedo, senior racial justice attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. “Title VI prohibits school districts from denying anyone—regardless of their race, color, or national origin—the opportunity to participate as a member of an advisory body, yet the School District continues to breach the law.”

“Everyone should have an equal opportunity to get an education in this country. All parents should have an equal voice in the education of their children,” said Frank Kopcinski, directing attorney of California Rural Legal Assistance’s San Luis Obispo Office. “These are the promises of our civil rights laws. By denying Latinx parents the opportunity to participate in its advisory committee and by not providing adequate interpretation services at its board meetings, the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District violated these laws, silenced its community members, and engaged in unlawful discrimination,”

 

Click here to view the Office for Civil Rights investigation letter.

Click here to view the complaint.

Click here to see the district’s response. 

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The news staff of the Paso Robles Daily News wrote or edited this story from local contributors and press releases. The news staff can be reached at info@pasoroblesdailynews.com.