Office for Civil Rights investigating New Hanover County Schools
WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The U.S. Department of Education has confirmed the Office for Civil Rights has an investigation open at New Hanover County Schools.
An Education Department spokesman says the investigation was opened on February 2, but because this is an open investigation, OCR cannot provide further information or confirm case-specific details.
WWAY was told the issue concerns school websites being inaccessible for people with disabilities, so we reached out to New Hanover County Schools Spokeswoman Valita Quattlebaum.
She sent the following statement from school attorney Wayne Bullard.
‘New Hanover County Schools received notice on February 2, 2017, that a complaint had been filed with the Office of Civil Rights concerning district websites. The complaint concerns the accessibility of websites to people with disabilities. For example, websites can be formatted in a way that is compatible with text-to-voice programs used by people with vision disabilities.
NHCS has not received any complaints from the public and does not know who initiated the complaint with OCR. The NHCS believes that the OCR complaint is one of over 800 OCR complaints involving public school systems currently pending across the country and is part of a routine review of public school system websites by OCR. The NHCS is fully cooperating with OCR to determine if there are any issues that need to be corrected and is prepared to make modifications to ensure accessibility for people with disabilities as required by law.’
In 2012, the school district received word of two complaints filed by the OCR. One was relating to the use of ‘seclusion rooms’, while the other was filed by a family who said their child was discriminated against for various reasons, including allegations that teachers did not follow his individualized education plan, and excluded him from a field trip.
Leave a Reply