Six refugees are suing a Pennsylvania school district, claiming that the education is below their expectations. “[The] Plaintiffs are refugees who have fled war, violence, and persecution from their native countries,” says the lawsuit against the Lancaster School District in east central Pennsylvania, first reported by Fox News. “Having finally escaped their turbulent environment to resettle in America, these young immigrants yearn to learn English and get an education so they can make a life for themselves.”
The students, whose ages range from 17 to 21, come from Somalia, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Burma. The students were aiming to go to their local high school, McCaskey High School, but were sent to Phoenix Academy, a private for-profit school.
According to U.S. News and World Report‘s 2016 rankings cited by Fox News, Phoenix had a 54 percent graduation rate. The school’s 458 students are educated by just 11 full-time teachers, and perform below state averages for standardized tests.
The students are being represented by the Pennsylvania arm of the ACLU. A copy of the complaint can be found here.
According to Reggie Shuford, Executive Director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, “Rather than helping them make the difficult adjustment by providing educational resources required by law, the school district has denied them an education completely or forced them into an alternative school, where they are often bullied and don’t learn.”
The ACLU called Phoenix Academy “more like a disciplinary school than a traditional public high school” that does not offer any services for students like the six refugees.
The district, however, says Phoenix has a special “acceleration program” that helps the students earn a high school diploma. The programs include, but are not limited to, remedial services, English classes for the students and computer classes. “[The District] believes the lawsuit is without merit,” Superintendent Damaris Rau said in a statement. “We are confident we are doing an excellent job supporting our refugee students who often come to school with little or no education.”
Earlier this week, some of the students testified about their educational experience in an Eastern District of Pennsylvania courtroom. The lead plaintiff Khadidja Issa, who came from Sudan and was in a refugee camp from age five to 17, said the school’s security procedures were invasive.
“I have been to school before and I’ve never seen a place where they pat you down in order to enter school, and they do it every day,” she said, according to Fox.
Issa also testified that she was told to get a job instead of an education.
In its story on the lawsuit, Penn Live reported that “Lancaster is a popular location for arriving refugees, due to its proximity to Philadelphia and New York City and the infrastructure already in place to welcome them here.”
