Alleged Racial Discrimination Investigated in Montco School

The U.S. Department of Education will investigate allegations of racial discrimination at Upper Dublin School District, a spokesperson with the agency confirmed on Tuesday.

The investigation, which was officially launched on December 7, comes as the result of a complaint filed by the Concerned African-American Parents (CAAP) on Nov. 23 on behalf of several parents of African-American children in the district, the Public Interest Law Center reports.

The complaint alleges that Upper Dublin has used discriminatory practices that have led to higher out-of-school suspension rates for black students. It also alleges that black students are disproportionately placed in lower-level classes and not given fair access to honors-level tracks.

CAAP also filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission requesting a full investigation. CAAP claims that Upper Dublin is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

“The district’s policies have serious, immediate consequences for our children,” said Dawn Kelley, a leading member of CAAP, in a summary of the suit published by the Public Interest Law Center. “Higher suspension rates are putting black students at a severe disadvantage when it comes to college and career prospects.”

Specifically, the complaint cites statistics from the 2014-2015 school year which state that 45 percent of all out-of-school suspensions were of black students, even though black students only comprise 7 percent of the student population.

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Furthermore, no black students were in the "gifted education" track in any of the district’s four elementary schools in 2014-2015, the complaint states.

The complaint even details the case of an individual black student who received an A in social studies in eighth grade but was not recommended for honors history in ninth grade.

Deborah Wheeler, the Superintendent of Schools with Upper Dublin, said Tuesday that the school district has been "evaluating" these issues since November of 2015, when complaints were first raised.

"Since then, the District has taken a thorough look at its practices and significant changes have been made," Wheeler said.

She said that one of those changes was reducing the number of tracking levels - the level of difficulty of classes - from three levels to two levels in September, 2016. That change was made for ninth grade English, Social Studies and Science classes. Starting in September 2017, tracking will be reduced to two levels levels for 10th grade as well.

Wheeler said that they received a letter from the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights requesting information like academic tracking data, disciplinary data, and corrective actions taken.

"Every effort will be made to provide all requested documentation in a timely matter."

Patch file photo