U.S. Education Department launches civil rights investigation into Green Bay School District
'In America, we do not 'prioritize' students for educational access, nor do we judge their worth, on the basis of skin color. Schools must provide special needs students access to supportive educational resources on an equal footing and on the basis of need, not on the basis of race,' acting assistant secretary for civil rights Craig Trainor said in a May 28 news release.
In the complaint, the law firm Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty alleged the district discriminated against Green Bay King Elementary parent Colby Decker's son by not providing him access to literacy resources because he was not a 'focus student,' which was defined as a First Nations, Black or Hispanic student in King's student success plan. The focus student language has since been changed.
Decker's son has dyslexia, and she told WILL she requested he receive a one-on-one intervention. She said her son was put on a waiting list for reading interventions in April 2024 and was finally placed in a small group intervention last fall, which she said caused her son to fall behind.
Decker and WILL allege the district violated Title VI, which prohibits racial and ethnic discrimination. The civil rights complaint also raised concerns about the way the district handled WILL's original complaint, saying the district's investigation was biased. The complaint also claimed the district didn't meet special education law needs relating to Decker's son's dyslexia, which they said would account for discrimination on the basis of disability.
On May 28, OCR said it had opened a formal investigation into Green Bay based on the complaint. It will investigate whether the district violated Title VI, which prohibits racial and ethnic discrimination, and whether it failed to evaluate Decker's son as a student with disabilities, which it says is discrimination under federal law.
"The district had many opportunities to change course and make clear it would be treating its students in a colorblind way, and they didn't do that," WILL legal counsel Cory Brewer said. "We really hope this investigation is eye-opening for the district, particularly for district leaders."
Green Bay communications director Lori Blakeslee said the district hadn't yet received anything from OCR.
Contact Green Bay education reporter Nadia Scharf at nscharf@gannett.com or on X at @nadiaascharf.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Federal civil rights investigation launched into Green Bay Schools
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Hamilton Spectator
an hour ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Hamilton eyes Indigenous interpretive signs for three ‘potentially problematic' monuments
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You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
Newsweek
2 hours ago
- Newsweek
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NBC News
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Trump has sicced his Department of Justice on the mayor to investigate his hiring practices after Johnson had discussed hiring Black individuals for key positions. Johnson fired back that his hiring reflected the country and the city, while Trump's hiring reflected a 'country club.' It caught on in conservative circles, with cable news hosts bashing Johnson just as they had done with Lightfoot. In an interview, she said Mamdani could expect the same. Lightfoot often hit back, and that brought its own repercussions. 'It's hard to fight against the guy who's got the biggest megaphone in the world,' Lightfoot said. 'Many of us who were Black women, like me in Chicago, like Muriel Bowser in D.C., like Keisha Lance Bottoms in Atlanta, when he mentioned us by name in a disparaging way, candidly, the death threats went through the roof.' Moving into the second half of his term, Johnson can point to public safety as one of his biggest achievements. 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As far as Johnson's poll numbers, 'the narrative that Mayor Johnson is unpopular has been constructed by a small number of well-funded political organizations opposed to the Mayor's progressive agenda,' the statement said.
