letter alleged<\/a> that Latinos in Action violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.<\/p>\nA major issue cited was an answer that had been included in a frequently asked questions section of the national group\u2019s website. The question was whether the program was open to all students. The response was, \u201c80% of the class must be Latino. 20% of students may be from any other racial\/ethnic background,\u201d which the federal government said is \u201cprohibited racial balancing.\u201d<\/p>\n
That language, which had been removed from the website by late September, was not included in the school district\u2019s contract with Latinos in Action.<\/p>\n
Still, the federal department threatened to withhold $30 million in Broward County magnet funding if the district didn\u2019t discontinue the partnership. Several other school districts in Florida received similar letters, although State Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz said during a news conference last month that similar letters were not sent to districts in other states that have Latinos in Action chapters.<\/p>\n
Wasserman-Schultz led an effort of Democratic members of Congress to urge the Department of Education to reconsider, saying the program doesn\u2019t discriminate. But school district officials say they got no indication the Trump administration would budge.<\/p>\n
The School Board\u2019s vote to terminate was 6-3. Some board members praised the program, saying it has helped many foreign-born students acclimate to school and has helped students with their academic, social and leadership skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been a tremendous program for our students. It is really disturbing that this is happening now, and it is harmful to students to get rid of this program,\u201d Board Chairwoman Sarah Leonardi, one of the three no votes, said during the meeting.<\/p>\n
Board member Adam Cervera said he liked what the organization did but didn\u2019t support the 80-20 provision that had been listed on the organization\u2019s website.\u00a0\u201cWhat\u2019s extremely disturbing to me is when we attempted to reach out to the corporate office or the corporate headquarters of Latinos In Action for clarification and to see if they would fix this issue, we didn\u2019t get a response,\u201d Cervera said.<\/p>\n
Cervera said he supported terminating the contract, \u201cnot because I was not a fan of the program or I don\u2019t think there was value in the program. I will not allow this district to partake in or to engage with any company, any vendor who is breaking the law or is not following federal code.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jose Enriquez, CEO and founder of Latinos In Action, sent a letter to the School Board on Nov. 25 disputing Cervera\u2019s assertions. He wrote that his organization had communicated with Hepburn by phone and in writing several times to address the concerns. Enriquez wrote Latinos in Action \u201chas never required or mandated a racial quota,\u201d and that district leadership \u201cconfirmed in an email chain that students were not restricted from participating in this course.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite these efforts, BCPS ended our contract without providing (Latinos in Action) an opportunity to discuss, address, or resolve the Department of Education\u2019s concerns,\u201d Enriquez wrote. \u201cThe statements made during the Special Board Meeting regarding racial quota requirements and a lack of communication from LIA were inaccurate and misinformed. We believe it is important to correct the record promptly and transparently.\u201d<\/p>\n
School Board member Maura Bulman, who voted to terminate, said Nov. 18 that the only issue influencing her vote was the threat by the U.S. Department of Education.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that how we personally feel about how great the organization is really has any bearing on it,\u201d Bulman said. \u201cIt\u2019s just a matter of do we want to jeopardize $30 million or not. \u2026 I think we just need to make the decision and be done with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Broward schools have severed ties with the youth leadership program Latinos in Action, fearing a continued partnership could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[113,249,251,250,266,115,109,32797],"class_list":{"0":"post-68406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-lauderdale","8":"tag-education","9":"tag-fort-lauderdale","10":"tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","11":"tag-fort-lauderdale-news","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-social","15":"tag-south-florida-schools"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}