Lawyers say 360 High school closure is a civil rights issue

PROVDIENCE, R.I. (WLNE) –After months of looking for help from public officials, parents of 360 students are taking matters into their own hands, launching a lawsuit against the district with the help of the RI Center of Justice, to prevent their schools impending closure.

“Congress said language access is a little bit different. It’s not just like being excluded on the basis of your national origin or your skin color, or some other immutable characteristic. It’s actually that schools need to do something extra to include these students and their families.” said Jennifer Wood with the RI Center of Justice.

Wood says removing a resource like 360 from multi-language families is more than an inconvenience, it’s a civil rights issue.

“The closing of schools and decisions made about who gets to go to what school has been a civil rights issue – kind of that’s the point of the complaint – for over 70 years. And this is the 2024 version of that.” said Wood

The suit is coming from four parents and their students, who describe their experience with the school, and their concerns about its removal.

One parent, Maria Pirir, sent a statement which reads in part:

I am asking the judge to protect my son and the other students. My son has special needs and I didn’t feel safe sending him to school before he started at 360 high school. At other schools there were only one or two people who could communicate with me about my son’s education. At 360 high school I can speak with the entire team who works with my son.

Parents, teachers, and students have attempted to speak with legislators all the way up through Smith Hill, but haven’t found much success in pushing back on the planned closure of 360.

“We knew, I sat there listening to their very passionate and heartfelt testimony at the school board, at the city council. Knowing that there was no legal authority for those bodies to act. So this is different.” said Wood.

The goal is to temporarily stop the closure of the school and require the district to work with the community to create a transition plan moving forward.

We reached out to Providence Public Schools for comment, they sent us a statement which reads in part:

PPSD and RIDE acted in the best interests of students and are committed to expanding access to high quality learning opportunities for all students, including multilingual learners.