Howard County Fighting Redistricting Legal Fund
Don protégé
Help Howard County Parents Fight Illegal Redistricting
Eleven plaintiffs. Six BOE appeals. Thirty-six Pro Se Plaintiffs (individual families and neighborhoods who filed on their own).
Lorraine Lawrence -Whittaker, Esq., and her firm have provided assistance to everyone challenging the horrible redistricting plan.
Please help these families with their legal costs.
—This gofundme campaign is primarily to facilitate out of state donations.
—The money will go to a client escrow account set up by Lorraine Lawrence Whittaker and will be used to pay the invoices for these cases. The legal committee will have full transparency and will continue to review all invoices from Lorraine Lawrence-Whittaker’s firm.
—FEI will continue to accept donations to the legal fund from Maryland residents.
**All donations are gratefully accepted.**
THANK YOU
Background:
On November 21, 2019, the Howard County, Maryland, Board of Education (BOE) voted to approve a radical redistricting plan that was unsupported by the community. The plan moved 5,402 kids, turned 544 walkers into bus riders, increased transportation costs by over $5 million, moved kids based on socioeconomic status/Free and Reduced Meal (FARM) eligibility, split neighborhoods, created small feeds, and increased transportation time. Thousands of parents, children, and concerned citizens protested, testified in person, and submitted thousands of pages of written testimony. The overwhelmingly negative feedback to the plan was ignored.
What Happened?
• Equal Protection Clause of the United Sates Constitution violation – appellants and families for whom English is not their native language were not informed of any proposed plan in their native language
• BOE knowingly made decisions based on significant amounts of faulty FARMS data
• BOE improperly used racial classification and race-based considerations in school assignments
• Civil rights violation of children with learning differences or disabilities – the BOE failed to make reasonable accommodations to extend the timeline for exemptions for kids with IEPs or 504 plans to stay at their current school
• Open Meetings Act and procedural violations – after a failed vote that would have derailed the entire elementary school plan, the BOE illegally entered into a closed session and bullied another BOE member to change her vote when the public meeting resumed
• The BOE ignored a Feasibility Study that cost taxpayers about $400,000; the voted-on plan was arbitrarily culled together by a Board of laypeople with little understanding of geospatial analysis
What Is the Practical Impact on Families?
• Students are being removed from Title 1 schools that have many additional social and education supports and sent to schools that do not have these special supports.
• Children are being taken from their close neighborhood school and being sent to schools much farther away, sometimes the 4th closest school.
• Hundreds of kids who walk to school are being put on busses increasing transportation time, costs, and traffic. Parents who do not own a vehicle can no longer volunteer or attend events at their child’s school.
How Are We Fighting Back?
• The law firm of Lawrence Whittaker P.C. filed SIX appeals to the Maryland State Board of Education on December 23, 2019 and an Open Meetings Act (OMA) complaint in the Circuit Court for Howard County on January 6, 2020.
• We had a pre-hearing conference for the BOE appeals on February 20, 2020 and have received the BOE’s answer to our OMA complaint.
• We need additional funding so that we can move forward with various motions in the BOE appeals and the court case. We also need to begin discovery and take depositions. Please help these kids fight this illegal redistricting so that they can remain in their neighborhood schools.
Eleven plaintiffs. Six BOE appeals. Thirty-six Pro Se Plaintiffs (individual families and neighborhoods who filed on their own).
Lorraine Lawrence -Whittaker, Esq., and her firm have provided assistance to everyone challenging the horrible redistricting plan.
Please help these families with their legal costs.
—This gofundme campaign is primarily to facilitate out of state donations.
—The money will go to a client escrow account set up by Lorraine Lawrence Whittaker and will be used to pay the invoices for these cases. The legal committee will have full transparency and will continue to review all invoices from Lorraine Lawrence-Whittaker’s firm.
—FEI will continue to accept donations to the legal fund from Maryland residents.
**All donations are gratefully accepted.**
THANK YOU
Background:
On November 21, 2019, the Howard County, Maryland, Board of Education (BOE) voted to approve a radical redistricting plan that was unsupported by the community. The plan moved 5,402 kids, turned 544 walkers into bus riders, increased transportation costs by over $5 million, moved kids based on socioeconomic status/Free and Reduced Meal (FARM) eligibility, split neighborhoods, created small feeds, and increased transportation time. Thousands of parents, children, and concerned citizens protested, testified in person, and submitted thousands of pages of written testimony. The overwhelmingly negative feedback to the plan was ignored.
What Happened?
• Equal Protection Clause of the United Sates Constitution violation – appellants and families for whom English is not their native language were not informed of any proposed plan in their native language
• BOE knowingly made decisions based on significant amounts of faulty FARMS data
• BOE improperly used racial classification and race-based considerations in school assignments
• Civil rights violation of children with learning differences or disabilities – the BOE failed to make reasonable accommodations to extend the timeline for exemptions for kids with IEPs or 504 plans to stay at their current school
• Open Meetings Act and procedural violations – after a failed vote that would have derailed the entire elementary school plan, the BOE illegally entered into a closed session and bullied another BOE member to change her vote when the public meeting resumed
• The BOE ignored a Feasibility Study that cost taxpayers about $400,000; the voted-on plan was arbitrarily culled together by a Board of laypeople with little understanding of geospatial analysis
What Is the Practical Impact on Families?
• Students are being removed from Title 1 schools that have many additional social and education supports and sent to schools that do not have these special supports.
• Children are being taken from their close neighborhood school and being sent to schools much farther away, sometimes the 4th closest school.
• Hundreds of kids who walk to school are being put on busses increasing transportation time, costs, and traffic. Parents who do not own a vehicle can no longer volunteer or attend events at their child’s school.
How Are We Fighting Back?
• The law firm of Lawrence Whittaker P.C. filed SIX appeals to the Maryland State Board of Education on December 23, 2019 and an Open Meetings Act (OMA) complaint in the Circuit Court for Howard County on January 6, 2020.
• We had a pre-hearing conference for the BOE appeals on February 20, 2020 and have received the BOE’s answer to our OMA complaint.
• We need additional funding so that we can move forward with various motions in the BOE appeals and the court case. We also need to begin discovery and take depositions. Please help these kids fight this illegal redistricting so that they can remain in their neighborhood schools.
Organisateur
Marybeth Steil
Organisateur
Columbia, MD