WS Chronicle

PART THREE OF A SERIES ON THE SLOW PROGRESS OF REPLACEMENT OF AGING SCHOOL 

Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In response to the district’s decision to replace the HVAC system instead of moving students from the aging building, Action4Ashley filed a discrimination lawsuit with the U.S. Department of Education.  

The lawsuit, which was filed just a few days before the start of the 2018 school year, cited failure on behalf of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools (WS/FCS) and the Board of Education to address complaints of mold and poor air quality.  

The complaint alleged that the WSFCS violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. 

When the lawsuit was filed, Action4Ashley was joined by several organizations including the Winston-Salem Forsyth County NAACP, the Ministers’ Conference of Winston-Salem and Vicinity (MCWSV), the Coalition for Equality in Public Education, the Local Organizing Committee, Drum Majors Alliance, and The Big 4 Alumni Association.  

During a press conference held to announce the lawsuit, Rev. Alvin Carlisle, former president of the local NAACP, said, “Ashley Elementary is a symptom of a continual disproportionate allocation of funding as it concerns education in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County. 

“We have chosen not to sit by any longer and allow this violation to go forward, so we have connected with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice to file a complaint for violation of the Civil Rights Act.” 

To support their allegations of “intentional discrimination,” the coalition says in the complaint, “WSFCS’s failure to quickly and fully address the poor facility conditions at Ashley has weighed significantly more on one race than others because Ashley is a racially identifiable school. 

“Only 5.8% of Ashley’s student population is white, with the majority of students identifying as Black (59.3%). This is significantly different than the racial make-up of the district as a whole, which is 39.2% white and only 28.4% Black. Therefore, since Ashley enrolls a disproportionate number of Black students, the challenged action bears more heavily on Black and other non-white students.” 

Action4Ashley also lists the removal of a “new Ashley” from the 2016 bond projects, and the action taken to remove students and staff from Hanes-Lowrance in 2015 following complaints of the air quality in the building, as “factual background” in their 14-page complaint. 

When discussing the matter, Attorney Peggy Nicholson, with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice’s Youth Justice Project, said her clients are asking the Office of Civil Rights to require the district to take immediate action to remedy the discrimination, including building a new facility for Ashley as soon as possible. She continued, “They have been denied access to a learning environment that promotes their learning the same way it does at other whiter, more affluent schools in the district. Despite cries from the Ashley community and this coalition, the district’s response has been slow and inadequate. 

“We believe the involvement from the Office of Civil Rights is necessary to ensure that the district addresses this crisis fully and immediately so that students actually have equal opportunities as their peers in the district.” 

Rev. Paul Ford, a longtime supporter of Action4Ashley, said after multiple attempts to reason with the district, the reality is sometimes you have to fight.  

“We’re opening up a multi-front fight to make sure that these students, these teachers, and these administrators are no longer subjected to toxic conditions that impair their ability to teach and impair these students to learn and succeed,” continued Ford. “Today, we’re saying enough is enough and this lawsuit that is being filed today is just another step in that process.” 

Although the lawsuit was significant in the ongoing battle to replace the aging school, it would take another five years before the district would allocate funding to build the new school.