ACLU, families sue Truancy Court, claiming its practices are abusive

[jimmy olsen]

Hmm...looks bad.

http://www.projo.com/news/content/ACLU_TRUANCY_LAWSUIT_03-29-10_RBHTOGQ_v236.5f84c7.html

ACLU, families sue Truancy Court, claiming its practices are abusive

01:00 AM EDT on Monday, March 29, 2010

By Lynn Arditi

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — The Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union is suing Family Court Chief Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah and his appointees who operate the state's Truancy Court program, saying they violated the constitutional rights of public school children and their parents.

The class action lawsuit, expected to be filed Monday in Superior Court, charges that administrators of the program created by the chief judge have, in some cases, threatened to arrest students or have them placed in state custody for failing to attend school. The court's administrators have engaged in a "pattern and practice of intimidation designed to bully [the] plaintiffs" into waiving their constitutional rights, according to a draft copy of the suit.

The plaintiffs — nine teenagers identified by pseudonyms and their parents or guardians –– include students with chronic medical conditions, special educational needs, and family caretaking obligations, which, the lawsuit says, resulted in their being absent, tardy or unable to keep up with their schoolwork or behave in class.

Among the plaintiffs is a Providence middle-school student with sickle-cell anemia whose education plan stated specifically that he not be punished for missing school, and a mother who was ordered to leave her night-shift job early to make sure that her daughter got to school by 7 a.m. In another instance, a mother whose child was ill, the suit says, was ordered to bring her son to school or he would be arrested. Some of the plaintiffs were 11 or 12 years old when they were labeled "truant" or "wayward."

The alleged abuses occurred in five school districts –– Providence, North Providence, Woonsocket, Coventry and Cumberland –– where the truancy courts had jurisdiction over more than 700 students during each of the past two school years, according to the suit.

Among the plaintiffs named in the lawsuit is Rozanne Thomasian, whose daughter was 12 when the truancy court first declared her "wayward" for missing too much school.

"She was such a nervous wreck about school," Thomasian recalled during an interview. "She would cry and sob: I don't want to go!"

Thomasian, 53, is a nurse. She and her daughter, now 15, live with three cats in a tidy house in North Providence. Her daughter was in first grade when she was diagnosed with ADHD and Tourette's syndrome. If the doctors changed her daughter's medications, she said, she'd notify the school nurse because it could affect her daughter's behavior. She said she tried to raise the issue at the truancy court hearings, but the magistrate "had no interest whatsoever."

The magistrate repeatedly told her that if her daughter continued to miss school and not do her homework, she recalled, the court could have her placed in the custody of the state Department of Children, Youth and Families.

"When I'd bring her to school every day," Thomasian said, "I'd say a prayer: Let her behave. Don't give him an excuse to take her...."

Created by Judge Jeremiah in 1999, the Truancy Court program is supposed to help at-risk students stay in school. The courts, which are overseen by the Family Court, operate in satellite hearing rooms set up in school offices or school libraries. Lawyers appointed as court magistrates by Jeremiah administer the hearings.

Truancy courts operate in more than 150 schools throughout Rhode Island. They have no stenographers so there are no written transcripts of hearings which, the lawsuit contends, violates the due process rights of the plaintiffs.

The court administrators and magistrates, the suit alleges, are improperly asking parents to sign admission forms which "waive their rights" to a hearing with legal representation in Family Court. The students and their parents may be required to attend weekly truancy court hearings where magistrates may issue orders to the parents.

In Coventry, for example, a high school freshman had to attend truancy hearings because of "excessive tardiness," the suit says. The daughter was late, the suit says, because she was caring for her 4-year-old brother until her mother got home from her night-shift job at about 7:10 a.m. The magistrate, the suit says, ordered the mother to "leave work 10 minutes early every day to ensure that [her daughter] was on time to school." As a result, the suit says, the mother had her pay docked 40 minutes a week. (In February, the suit says, she lost her job, though it's unclear whether that had anything to do with her change in work hours.)

Some truancy cases do wind up in Family Court. The lawsuit recounts one case in which a mother who failed to appear at a truancy court hearing because she was hospitalized was ordered to appear in court last February "under the threat of incarceration." At the Feb 24 hearing, the suit says, the mother appeared without her 13-year-old son, who she told the judge was at home ill. The boy has sickle-cell anemia, a blood disorder, according to the suit. Jeremiah issued an arrest warrant for the teenager, the suit says, and then told the mother he would vacate the arrest warrant if she got him into school by noon that day. The mother rushed home and brought her son into school. Less than two hours later, the boy complained of chest pain and an ambulance took him to the hospital.

Besides Jeremiah, the defendants named in the lawsuit include Ronald Pagliarini, administrator of family court; Kevin Richard, director of juvenile services; Truancy Court Magistrates Patricia K. Asquith, Colleen M. Hastings, Edward H. Newman, Angela M. Paulhus and Thomas Wright; as well as the school superintendents in Providence, North Providence, Woonsocket, Cumberland and Coventry.

[Caliga]

Jeremiah S. Jeremiah

[jimmy olsen]

Jeremiah S. Jeremiah

Jeremiah squared