Atlanta Independent School System Officials Will Ensure Students' Constitutional Rights Are Upheld After Settlement Of ACLU Lawsuit

Lawsuit Charged Atlanta Alternative School With Providing Inadequate Education

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ATLANTA – Atlanta Independent School System (AISS) officials have agreed to implement a broad array of improvements at its alternative school as part of a settlement of a federal lawsuit filed last year by the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Georgia. The lawsuit charged AISS, which has now resumed administration of Forrest Hill Academy from Community Education Partners (CEP), with violating students’ constitutional rights to an adequate public education.

“AISS deserves a tremendous amount of credit for reaffirming its commitment to providing all of its students with an adequate public education,” said Reginald T. Shuford, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Racial Justice Program. “Today’s agreement is a very hopeful sign that the students at Forrest Hill will from here on out receive the kind of quality education they deserve and to which they are entitled.”

The ACLU and the ACLU of Georgia filed the lawsuit in March 2008 charging AISS and CEP with violating students’ constitutional rights under both federal and state law. CEP is a for-profit corporation that was paid approximately $7 million a year by the city to run the school until AISS severed its contract with the company earlier this year. The ACLU dropped CEP as a defendant in the lawsuit after AISS ended its contract with the company.

The lawsuit specifically charged that students’ rights to be free from unreasonable searches was routinely violated at the taxpayer-funded alternative middle and high school for students with behavioral problems, and that the performance and practices of the school were abysmal by nearly every available measurement.

“It is a real credit to AISS leaders that they have expressed such a strong commitment to ensuring that the education provided to the school’s students meets constitutional standards,” said Debbie Seagraves, Executive Director of the ACLU of Georgia. “Students don’t deserve to be stuck in a system that simply funnels them on a pathway toward prison, and the commitment of AISS to the students at Forrest Hill will go a long way toward making sure they succeed academically and later in life.”

As part of the agreement, AISS officials will ensure that students at Forrest Hill Academy are free from unreasonable searches, that the constitutional due process rights of students are upheld when they are assigned to the school or disciplined and that a learning environment be cultivated that effectively facilitates students’ return to traditional schools as quickly as reasonably possible.

According to terms of the settlement, AISS officials will utilize a curriculum at Forrest Hill that is based on the Georgia performance standards under state law and which is substantially similar to the curriculum available at Atlanta’s other public schools, including services for students with disabilities and remedial classes. All Forrest Hill students will be subjected to discipline in a manner that upholds applicable law and constitutional standards of due process. And no Forrest Hill student will be subjected to intrusive searches without authorities first articulating reasonable suspicion.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs in the case include Shuford, Chara Fisher Jackson of the ACLU Foundation of Georgia, Nancy Abudu from the ACLU Southern Regional Office and lawyers from the Davis Bozeman law Firm PC and Covington and Burling LLP.

Additional information about the ACLU Racial Justice Program is available online at: www.aclu.org/racialjustice

Additional information about the ACLU of Georgia is available online at: www.acluga.org