The Collier County School District faces a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of three Immokalee immigrant families alleging that their teenage children were illegally denied admission to Immokalee High School and were instead offered an adult English language program that wouldn’t be a path towards a high school diploma. The SPLC claims the district’s actions violate the Equal Educational Opportunities Act, a provision of the Civil Rights Act, the Florida Educational Equity Act and the 14th Amendment. The suit seeks to have the students enrolled and to provide them with education they’ve missed as well as change the district’s policy. The Collier County School District won’t comment on the pending litigation, but the school district’s general counsel Jon Fishbane addressed the issue in a letter from last fall. Fishbane says the students were 16 years old at the time they requested enrollment, had only finished the sixth grade and were not proficient in English. Fishbane writes enrolling them in a standard diploma program “would have set them up for academic failure, with its attendant psychological and social consequences, which the district was not willing to do.” Fishbane further writes that the students could still earn a diploma through an adult secondary education program.
The dispute isn’t unique to Collier County. An Associated Press investigation this year found that at least 35 districts in 14 states face similar accusations related to the enrollment of unaccompanied minors from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
Guests:
Tania Galloni, Managing Attorney, Southern Poverty Law Center, Florida Office
