Welcoming refugees? Will lawyers descend on your
school system next? by Ann Corcoran, 8/17/16
This is a lesson for
every town contemplating becoming a “welcoming” refugee resettlement
site. Are you listening Rutland, VT, Aberdeen, SD, Reno, NV, Missoula, MT,
Charleston, WV and Fayetteville, Arkansas? This news comes to us from “welcoming”
Lancaster, PA (btw, it is in Lancaster that I first heard citizens, who asked questions about
refugee impact, described as being in “pockets of resistance!”) “Enriching u all” or is it
bankrupting us all?
Apparently the
Lancaster school system sought to deal with older, non-English speaking,
refugees by placing them in an alternative school system, but lawyers for the
ACLU and others will have none of it. So now the school district there will be in
court all week defending their decision at taxpayer expense. And, so
much for your American kids getting a good education!
From Newsworks: As many as 700 refugees are resettled each
year in Lancaster, a high number for the city’s population. [This will
happen to your town! Once they get a foothold the original 50 or 100 become
200, 500, 700 in one year!—ed]
Four of them
are spending today in court, where they’ll testify in a lawsuit against the
School District of Lancaster.
The suit alleges the district’s breaking the
law by refusing to admit older teen refugees or automatically diverting them to
an accelerated credit program. There, the case claims, they get an education inferior
to what’s available at the local public high school (particularly when it comes
to English language instruction.)
But attorney
Sharon O’Donnell, who’s representing the school, says “the bottom line is whether
the court can tell the [Lancaster] school board where to place students.”
Pennsylvania
school code says residents between 6 and 21 years old are entitled to a free
public education. At least one international treaty, the U.N.’s 1951 Refugee
Convention, requires refugees to get the same public education as residents of
countries where they’re resettled. [So we are being told that a UN treaty could govern
our local school board decisions!—ed]
The lawsuit
also alleges civil rights and federal Equal Educational Opportunities Act
violations by the school, which O’Donnell refuted in recent court filings.
The lawsuit in Pennsylvania is similar to
others filed in Florida and settled in New York this spring, and comes as
refugee resettlement is expected to continue to rise.
The lawsuit’s
being brought by a total of six student refugees, represented by a team of
lawyers. Aside from Rothschild, they’re from the American Civil Liberties Union
of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia-based Education Law Center.
This is all the
more reason to tell
your Congressmen and Senators NO! when Obama wants more tax dollars next month. See our
extensive archive on Lancaster by clicking
here.
Comments
It takes
a generation to assimilate. That’s why
immigrants settled in ghettos in the 19th and 20th
centuries. But too many of our current
immigrants do not want to assimilate. No public schools are ready for
Non-English speaking students.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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