A federal class action was recently filed alleging that the School District of Lancaster, Pennsylvania has been illegally refusing to enrol older immigrant children in public school or diverting them to a inferior, privately-run disciplinary. The plaintiffs include six refugees, aged 17-21 from Burma, Somalia, Sudan and The Congo.
This is not an isolated incident of discimination agains ELL students. This is the third class action launched in the past two years in the US. Similar suits were also filed against school districts in Utica, New York and Collier County, Florida.