Charter stiffed us
Broke special-needs law, feds told
The city’s largest charter school chain has violated the rights of students with disabilities for years, a group of parents charged in a formal complaint filed Wednesday with the U.S. Department of Education.
Parents of 13 special needs students who attended eight schools in the Success Charter Network run by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz claim the network “has engaged in ongoing systemic policies that violate” federal laws protecting the disabled.
The allegations include: l Refusing to provide specialneeds students appropriate services required by law, while often making them repeat a grade. l Suspending them multiple times without keeping formal records of every instance, without due process, and without providing alternative instruction. l Harassing parents to transfer their children back into regular district schools.
“Charter schools like Success Academy should follow the same rules as traditional public schools and protect — not punish — children with disabilities,” Public Advocate Letitia James said.
James joined the complaint with five nonprofit legal advocacy groups and called for federal action. Success did not address the specific allegations.
“We are not in a position to comment on a complaint that we have not seen,” Ann Powell, a spokeswoman for Success Charter Network, said. “We are proud to serve 1,400 students who have special needs.”
The complainants are not identified in the documents. But one parent, Katie Jackson, agreed to be interviewed by the Daily News. She has a 9-yearold son who began attending kindergarten at Harlem Success 2 in August 2011.
According to the complaint, Jackson’s son was diagnosed with learning disabilities in the first grade. He was placed in a general education class that had two instructors, one of them a special education co-teacher. At the end of that year, the school required him to repeat the grade.
The mom says she asked for a smaller class size but was told her son had to go on a waiting list.
“It’s now two, going on three years and he’s still on the waiting list,” Jackson told The News. “Meanwhile, he’s fallen more behind in school.”
In November, a new evaluation was done on the boy and officials recommended a smaller class of only 12 students. But according to the complaint, Success administrators instead began arranging for him to be transferred to a p public school.
“The principal told me right to my face, ‘If he comes back next year, he will be left back again,’ ” Jackson said.
In response to growing cries nationwide that charter school operators are pushing out special needs pupils, the U.S. Department of Education reminded school systems in March 2014 that federal law requires “all students with
disabilities in a public school, including a public charter school, be provided appropriate regular or special education and related aids and services.”
Critics of Success Network have long suspected its astounding test scores — among the highest in the state — are made possible by shedding children with disabilities. Those scores have greased the network’s rapid growth to 36 schools and garnered it tens of millions of dollars in private donations.
But when your chain becomes as big and wealthy as Success Network, what’s the excuse for not providing appropriate services for special needs pupils? Maybe a federal probe will find out.