MAPLEWOOD/SOUTH ORANGE — The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced Oct. 28 that it had entered into an agreement with the South Orange-Maplewood School District in order to resolve a compliance review, initiated when civil rights organizations filed a complaint Oct. 9 with the federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights urging an investigation into the district’s practices of tracking and school discipline.
According to a previous release from the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, the SOMSD practices of tracking, which groups students with similar achievement level in classes together, and methods of discipline affect students differently based on race and disability status.
The complaint was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU-NJ and the Center for Civil Rights Remedies of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA. The groups charge that the school district’s tracking and discipline practices disproportionately confine students of color to lower-level classes and punish students of color and students with disabilities to a greater degree.
The complaint was brought under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which protects people from discrimination based on race, color or national origin in programs or activities that receive federal funding.
According to Timothy C.J. Blanchard, director of the OCR’s New York office, which serves New Jersey, in an Oct. 28 letter detailing the complaint and its subsequent resolution, the SOMSD had voluntarily expressed an interest in entering a resolution agreement.
“I applaud the district’s efforts to reinvigorate its course and program offerings to ensure that all of its students have an equal opportunity to reach their academic potential and equal access to a high quality education,” Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for civil rights, said in the release.
Acting Superintendent James Memoli did not respond to repeated requests for comment to the News-Record by press time.
He previously told the News-Record, however, when the complaint was first filed: “While we cannot comment specifically on active litigation, we can assure the community that SOMSD is fully committed to our core values that ‘demography should not be destiny, academically or otherwise,’ and that ‘all students deserve the opportunity to achieve their fullest potential.’ We have taken many steps over the past seven years to address the academic achievement gap, and while we have seen some progress, there is much more work in front of us.”
In recent years, the district has taken significant steps to expand the advanced and higher learning opportunities for all of its students by reducing tracking for many courses, increasing access the English language arts enrichment program in the elementary schools, and working to phase in the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme in the middle schools.
The district has also revised the criteria for Advanced Placement enrollment at the high school. In the 2012-2013 school year, Columbia High School used one or more of the following criteria to determine eligibility for AP classes: grades in specific previous courses, entrance examinations, teacher recommendations, interviews, portfolios, registration in other related courses, PSAT scores, rubrics rating students on academic performance and participation, oral assessments, and written essays.
But, for the 2013-2014 school year, the district lowered the selection criteria used to determine eligibility for certain AP courses. While selection criteria for 14 AP courses remained unchanged, the district reduced the requirements for admission in the AP courses for English language and composition, English literature and composition, and studio art; eliminated the entrance examinations for the AP biology and AP environmental science; and eliminated the written essay requirement for the five AP language courses.
Blanchard’s letter also outlines the MAC Scholars program, which pairs high-achieving high school students of color with middle school students of color. The high school students tutor their younger cohorts, model good study practices and encourage the middle school students to participate in academically challenging programs when they enter the high school.
Despite this, according to the DOE release, the OCR’s investigation revealed that the school district’s nearly 2,500 black students are significantly underrepresented in advanced and higher-level learning opportunities.
“OCR’s investigation revealed that the district offers numerous college and career ready opportunities to its high school students, including AP and honors courses, as well as dual enrollment courses,” Blanchard wrote in the letter. “While the district has modified and, in some cases, eliminated selection criteria for its high school AP courses, and operated programs designed to encourage students of color to participate in high rigor coursework, OCR determined that there is a statistically significant underrepresentation of African American students in the district’s high school AP courses. While African American students were 51.5 percent of high school enrollment, they were enrolled in only 18.7 percent of AP learning opportunities.”
The letter also noted that these issues of underrepresentation stem from the elementary and middle schools where, although the district has been working to reduce the achievement gap through enrichment programs and partial deleveling, there is still a significant disparity between the percentage of black students and the percentage of white students participating in higher level programs.
According to Blanchard’s letter, the OCR investigation took into account several data, such as: school level curricula, programs offered, mobility between levels, the new IB program, higher level learning courses at the high school, interviews with district staff, student enrollment figures, parent input and publicly available information.
As part of the agreement, which the district agreed to enter prior to any OCR compliance determinations, the district agreed to several criteria in order to try to shrink the racial disparity in higher level courses.
The district will work with an expert consultant; obtain feedback from students, parents and staff; and conduct a comprehensive self-assessment of its current programs and courses to identify any potential barriers. It will consider expanding criteria to determine eligibility and selection for enrollment. It will expand student, parent and community outreach about the available courses and programs — the current lack of communication regarding these programs is often brought up by parents at forums as an ongoing problem. The district will make improvements to the academic counseling services at the middle and high school levels as another way to increase communication.
And the district will provide training for relevant district and school site administrators and personnel.
Through all of this, the school district will be corresponding with the OCR to report the district’s progress.
“If the district fails to comply with the terms of the agreement, OCR will take appropriate action to ensure the district’s full compliance with Title VI and its implementing regulation,” Blanchard wrote in his letter.