Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
The lawyer who sued over Plan B in 1999 says the race-based selection system has not changed.
By STEPHEN HEGARTY
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 6, 2001
More than a year ago, the Florida Department of Education settled a reverse discrimination lawsuit and agreed to eliminate race as a factor in selecting children for gifted programs in public schools.
But after months of work and a public hearing, the state still has not crafted a new plan to replace the two-tiered, race-based system for identifying gifted students.
Now the state faces another lawsuit.
In a federal lawsuit to be filed in Miami-Dade today, Houston lawyer William Helfand claims that "by using the racial or ethnic background of students in the selection process . . . the Defendants have unlawfully discriminated."
The lawsuit was to have been filed Monday, but the courthouse was closed because of Hurricane Michelle. The plaintiffs this time are John Miller, 9, and his sister, Megan, 7, white students at Greynolds Park Elementary School in Miami. Both were denied admission to gifted classes in the Miami-Dade schools. John eventually was admitted to a gifted class after he took a second IQ test and scored high enough to meet the criterion for white, non-Hispanic students.
As with the earlier lawsuits that involved children from Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, Helfand contends John and Megan were discriminated against on the basis of their race because they were held to a higher admissions standard than minority children. This time the case is complicated by the fact that Helfand thought he had an agreement with the state that the admissions process would be changed, though it wasn't written into the settlement.
"In terms of the settlement, they have no legal obligation to take care of this," the Houston lawyer said Monday. "But as a basic issue of constitutional law, they have a responsibility to take care of it immediately."
Statewide, more than 105,000 students are enrolled in gifted programs. The majority, about 71,000, are white, non-Hispanic children.
For many years, a student needed a high IQ score to get into a gifted class. A score of 130 is the general standard. But some groups of children were underrepresented: black children, Hispanic children, low-income children and those who did not speak English as a first language.
In 1991, the state ordered school districts to come up with a second plan to include more minority children. They called it Plan B. It allowed districts to accept minority or low-income children who had high IQ scores, but not the 130, so long as those children showed other signs of giftedness.
In 1999, Helfand challenged Plan B on behalf of a Tampa woman whose daughter was denied admission to gifted classes even though she would have qualified had she been a minority. Helfand later sued on behalf of a Pinellas County woman as well.
When those lawsuits were settled in September 2000, then-Education Commissioner Tom Gallagher said, "We're going to settle it. . . . We'll end up with a plan that is . . . not based on race."
In April, the state held a public hearing in Tampa to get feedback on a proposal for revising the gifted admissions criteria. At the time, state officials said the proposal could go before the governor and Cabinet to be formally adopted as early as August. That has not happened, and the old Plan B system remains in place.
Officials at the Florida Department of Education declined to comment on the lawsuit Monday.