MANCHESTER — District officials entered into an agreement with the federal Office for Civil Rights to return a student to school who had been slated for an expulsion hearing for assaulting another student.
The move has drawn strong criticism from at least two members of the school board’s Conduct Committee, which had voted unanimously to hold an expedited expulsion hearing for the student.
“The committee was blind-sided. This action does not support safety in our schools,” Ward 2 board member Debra Gagnon Langton, longtime chairman of the Conduct Committee, said at a Nov. 24 meeting. “I really think we need to vote on this. This is a violation of the public trust.”
Superintendent Debra Livingston replied that any discussion of the matter should take place in nonpublic session since it involved student privacy.
The complaint rests on the allegation that the district did not provide a Dinka interpreter to communicate to the student or his parents concerning his suspension.
Dinka is spoken by people from South Sudan.
On Wednesday, Livingston again invoked privacy rules in response to questions about whether the board had voted on the agreement or whether the student had returned to school.
She acknowledged, however, that it was a “delicate issue” between the administration and the school board. “Certainly it’s part of a process. Some board members wanted me to know they didn’t agree with how this was handled. I have to respect that. There are many different ways of coming at things,” she said.
As for the issue of language interpreters in the schools, Livingston said, “There are 81 languages spoken in the district. It’s very difficult to find someone who can translate all documents. What we’re trying to do is provide translation to as many students as possible.”
It appears the board discussed the matter in nonpublic session at its meeting on Nov. 10, but there is no record of a vote being taken concerning the agreement.
At the Nov. 24 school board meeting, Livingston was blasted by Langton and Ward 6 board member Robyn Dunphy, who said the administration had “completely circumvented” the conduct committee.
“You absolutely went around us,” Dunphy said.
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR), a division of the U.S. Department of Education, first got involved in the case in September, when the student had been temporarily suspended. The district was informed by an official with the regional OCR office in Boston that it was being investigated for violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, prohibiting discrimination based on “race, color or national origin,” according to a letter from the office obtained by the New Hampshire Union Leader.
Under the terms of the agreement the district reached with the OCR last month, the student was to return to Manchester High School Central on Nov. 12, two days after the school board was to approve the document; the student’s record relating to his suspension and expulsion was to be expunged; and the district was to provide a Dinka interpreter at all meetings related to the “student’s disability and for all possible disciplinary matters.”
It appears that at the time of the alleged assault, the student was not considered disabled as defined by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Students designated as such are disciplined outside of the district’s standard suspension and expulsion process.
Under the OCR agreement, the student was to be evaluated to determine if he has a disability.
It’s not clear, however, if the school board ever approved the agreement, as required by the OCR.
This isn’t the first time the district has drawn the attention of the OCR. Earlier this year, the civil rights agency entered an agreement with the district under which it would take concrete steps to boost the enrollment of black and Hispanic students in advanced high school courses.
In August 2012, Mayor Ted Gatsas asked local representatives of the OCR to leave the City Hall chamber during a presentation in which they claimed that discrimination was a problem for minority students in the district. Gatsas accused the group of making unfounded and inflammatory claims.
tsiefer@unionleader.com