LSNYC-Bronx Clients featured in Daily News article examining “Zero-tolerance” at Charter Schools

The NY Daily News reports that Success Academy, the charter school chain that boasts sky-high student
scores on annual state tests, has for years used a “zero tolerance”
disciplinary policy to suspend, push out, discharge or demote the very
pupils who might lower those scores — children with special needs or
behavior problems. LSNYC-Bronx Staff Attorney Nelson Mar represents the two families whose stories are featured.

From the piece by Juan Gonzalez:

"[…] The News found a disturbing number of suspension cases where the
network’s administrators removed special-education pupils from normal
classrooms for weeks and even months, while at the same time pressuring
their parents to transfer them to regular public schools.

Take, for example, Idiatou Diallo of Tremont, the Bronx, and her three children.

Her boy, Alhassana, and two girls, Houssainatou and Hassanatou,
triplets who are now 8, were born premature, suffer from chronic illness
and need speech and physical therapy. All three were admitted to Bronx
Success 1 last August for first grade — having commuted to
Bedford-Stuyvesant Success 1 for all of kindergarten after Success
officials told their mother there were no available seats in their home
borough.

“Right away, the school started calling me, telling me my children were
having a tough time and misbehaving,” Diallo said. “They threatened
they’d kick them out of school if I didn’t transfer them.”

Alhassana and Houssainatou were repeatedly slapped with suspensions for
violating school rules, despite having detailed individual education
plans that instructed teachers on managing their anger outbursts.

On Nov. 27, Alhassana got a two-day suspension for “purposely walking with his eyes closed and hurting another scholar.”

In March, he got a 15-day suspension for “stomping on a teacher’s hand” and “throwing the teacher’s cell phone to the ground.”

His sister Houssainatou was only permitted to attend school for half a
day for more than two months because of her behavior problems, her
mother said.

“That was an illegal act of exclusion without any due process,” said
Nelson Mar, an attorney from Bronx Legal Services, who filed formal
complaints to the school on behalf of the children.

Federal law requires schools that suspend a special-education pupil for
more than 10 days to seek an impartial hearing on whether the child’s
behavior is related to his disability.

Success officials deny improper treatment of any pupils.

“We have no such policies and have no practice of ‘counseling out,’ ” network spokeswoman Jenny Sedlis said last month.

 After Mar secured an impartial hearing this spring with the Department
of Education, individual paraprofessionals were assigned to both
Alhassana and Houssainatou during the school day. Their suspensions
dropped dramatically and their academic performance has improved.

Read the NY Daily news article in full by clicking here.