LOS ANGELES — Judgment has been entered in favor of the Pasadena Unified School District in a discrimination lawsuit filed by parents of children who attended the majority-Latino Roosevelt, Jefferson and Franklin elementary schools, all of which were shuttered by the school board in 2019.
The plaintiffs alleged in their Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that the school board’s decision was unconstitutional and forced many Latino students to re-enroll in either Madison, Longfellow or Altadena elementary schools, all of which the plaintiffs contended had unfamiliar school environments and were over-enrolled. The parents, including plaintiffs David Chavez and Danae Tapia, wanted a judge to order a more equitable school closure process.
Judge Randolph M. Hammock signed a judgment in favor of the PUSD on Friday. The judgment stated that the plaintiffs “shall take nothing by way of their complaint.”
The judgment reflected Hammock’s ruling in January that came after a nonjury trial in November. The judge wrote that he was tasked with two questions: did the PUSD and the school board violate any laws when they voted in 2019 to close the three schools and should a court order be issued to keep the board from closing schools in the future without adequately considering the alleged disparate impact on Latinos?
“The short answer to both questions is an unequivocable ‘no,”‘ the judge wrote.
The judge also challenged the plaintiffs’ assertion in their closing brief that “overwhelming, uncontested evidence” was presented during trial that the board discriminated against Latinos with the three school closings.
“With all due respect, nothing could be further from the truth,” Hammock wrote. “The paltry evidence submitted at the trial did not even preponderate in favor of the plaintiffs on any material issue — let alone to be overwhelming.”
In short, the parents presented the testimony of no students at all and instead presented brief testimony from only three parents concerning the claimed disparate impact the school closures had on their respective child, which was minimal, if at all, Hammock wrote.
The bottom line was that the evidence “did not preponderate that any of those students truly suffered any actual and material negative impact, other than would be normally expected from not being able to go to their neighborhood school.”
In their closing brief, the plaintiffs’ attorneys contended that by closing schools that were disproportionately Latino, the PUSD “unlawfully concentrated the adverse effects of the closures on the Hispanic community in violation of California constitutional and statutory law.”
The three schools that were ultimately consolidated — either closed or identified as a receiving school — served higher shares of Latino students relative to non-consolidated PUSD elementary schools and relative to all but one of the other potential groupings considered by the board for consolidation, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys court papers.
The suit was filed in December 2022.
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