[color="Blue"](More jew/black fun from Lakewood, NJ. As usual, when
it is convenient for them, jews are considered White.)

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060531/NEWS/605310397/1070/NEWS02

State finds special-ed placements race-based

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 05/31/06

BY RICHARD QUINN
TOMS RIVER BUREAU

LAKEWOOD — J.H. is a girl with significant cognitive and development issues. B.W. is a boy suffering slowed development with speech and language skills and cognitive issues.

The two youngsters face strikingly similar struggles as they enter the educational system, yet special-education officials in Lakewood proposed a half-day, in-district placement for the girl and a full-day, out-of-district placement for the boy.

The reason for the disparate approaches, according to a state Department of Education investigation, appears to be race: The girl is black; the boy is white.

"The Lakewood School District is not making placement and program decisions based upon the individual needs of students with disabilities," according to a report from the state Department of Education. "Rather, program and placement decisions can be directly correlated with a student's race."

The simple line, buried near the end of a 31-page report sent to the district last week, asserts segregation in Lakewood's special-education placement policies for preschoolers. The state's investigation focused on how the district placed children ages 3 to 5 in the 2003-04 and 2004-05 school years.

Other state reports have determined that over the past few years, while only about 30 percent of Lakewood's special education students are white, about 80 percent of those in out-of-district placements are white.

And now the state has demanded the district submit a plan within two months to reform its policies.

The state has also mandated close monitoring of the district's placement policies in the coming school year and required the district to review the past two school years to determine if any black or Hispanic students are due "compensatory services."

ACLU called for probe

"You're not simply sweeping what happened in the past under the rug and saying, "Let's move forward from here,' " said Edward Barocas, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. "The state recognizes they're dealing not with statistics and abstractions. They're dealing with children . . . who were denied services they were entitled to."

The report comes less a week after district officials confirmed that an internal review discovered more than $1 million in federal funding intended for nonpublic school students was instead used in the public school system.

That money, though, did not involve special education.

The report sent to the district and the ACLU last week comes about a year after the state launched its investigation into what Barocas believed was a pattern of segregation in how Lakewood refers special-education students to out-of-district schools.

The ACLU probe focused mostly on pupils who end up at the private School for Children with Hidden Intelligence. The school, on Route 9, has encountered criticism from some taxpayers, who say it enrolls only Orthodox Jewish students and charges high tuition to the district. No official statistics on the religious affiliations of schools that receive public funding can be kept, by law.

The district has responded to this criticism that Orthodox parents are "highly familiar" with the school and "view SCHI as a natural, sequential "next step' " for students with special needs, according to the state report.

"It's not a positive outcome that, in fact, it's been confirmed discrimination was occurring," Barocas said. "We wished there was another explanation . . . but the sad truth is, we knew the statistics showed otherwise."

Statistical evidence

Those numbers, compiled by the ACLU and then vetted by state officials, showed that in 2002, 96 preschoolers were identified as needing special-education services. Barocas reported that 56 were white, 40 were nonwhite. Thirty-one of the 56 white students were deemed in need of out-of-district placement, but none of the 40 nonwhites was. Similar trends were found in data culled from the 2003 and 2004 school years.

"The statistics simply cannot be ignored by us nor the Department of Education," Barocas said.

A state spokeswoman declined to comment on the report and Lakewood Superintendent Edward W. Luick Tuesday would say only that the report is "under review."

The ACLU's accusations sparked the third discrimination investigation into Lakewood schools in the past four years. The first complaint, about separate buses for boys and girls attending Orthodox Jewish schools, has been repeatedly defeated in court hearings.

The other issue, which involved segregated bilingual classrooms in trailers on the grounds of Ella G. Clarke School, was dismissed by the U.S. Department of Education after the district moved the classes inside the building.

But this latest report is clear: Lakewood has violated special-education placement rules and the state is asking that a corrective action plan be filed by July 31. The plan, according to the report, must:

Revise the district's special-education policy to ensure placement decisions are based on individual needs, not the race of a child.

Notify state officials when the district will hold meetings to discuss placements. The state wants its representatives to have the opportunity to attend the meetings, too.

Re-examine the placements of minority preschool students in the 2003-04 and 2004-05 school years to see if some of those students are entitled to "compensatory services."

Improve training and understanding of federal special-education law.

The report does not talk about levying any fines against the district.

Report will be discussed

Chet Galdo, Board of Education president, said he has not had time to review the report but said district officials will discuss it in depth. He added the district may appeal the findings — which contradict three independent consultants hired by the district who found no segregation — but no decision has been made.

The district has continually rebutted claims of discrimination, noting that Orthodox parents — although religion cannot be ascertained, the overwhelming majority of Lakewood's white nonpublic school students are Orthodox — skew the figures. [color="Blue"](Orthodox kikes = White)

Many opt out of the public schools and others take advantage of government programs offered before their children enroll in public school. Both processes often lead those families to SCHI, district officials have argued to the state.

"It's the job of the board to make sure everyone has a fair and equal education," Galdo said. "The board will certainly be discussing this."