We have very little independent information about this case -- only a partial docket sheet. The information that follows is from Child Welfare Consent Decrees: Analysis of Thirty-Five Court Actions from 1995 to 2005, available here.

This class action involving children placed in state custody in Illinois was filed on November 17, 1989, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. The plaintiffs sought relief against Chicago's Board of Education for providing inadequate education to children in state custody, claiming that the state violated the plaintiffs' civil rights. Specifically, the complaint alleged that "children placed in shelters, group homes or residential institutions were automatically labeled as behavior disordered by the school district and segregated from other students."

A consent decree was approved by the court in 1991, requiring the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) to provide Chicago's Board of Education with "notification and appropriate identification of wards in shelter care, to enable educational enrollment and to verify the immunization records of wards in shelter care."

In 1994, the consent decree was modified to restructure the alternative transitional program. The consent decree was still being monitored as of 2005.

Alice Liu - 01/28/2013


compress summary