Upstate NY school district hit with lawsuit over immigrant education

The attorney for the school district says the suit is completely without merit, a slap in the face to the district’s hard-working teachers and staff and disproven by the actual numbers.

Schneiderman is alleging that district officials have discriminated against immigrant students. District officials said the student attends Stevenson High School in Sterling Heights for an hour a day, then Utica High School the rest of the day.

The Macomb County Health Department says that a student in the Utica School District has tuberculosis.

However, a statement from district Superintendent Bruce Karam claims the allegations against the district are false. “Access to a quality education is the foundation of the American Dream”. There is no threat to students and staff now.

At issue is the district’s treatment of students who are between 17 and 20 years old and have limited English proficiency.

Lokar said there is “no imminent health threat” to anyone in the schools. “Our office began a statewide joint compliance review back in the fall of 2014 with the state education department to make sure that all districts were enrolling students, particularly young immigrant students, in accordance with the law”.

About 18 percent of Utica’s 60,000 residents were born outside of the United States, Schneiderman said, and more than 25 percent speak a language other than English at home. They were sent to attend alternative programs in separate buildings, where they couldn’t pursue a diploma and missed out on gym, art, music and extra-curricular activities. To date we have approximately 1,700 English Language Learners enrolled in our school district, including over 200 English Language Learners who are between the ages of 17-21.