The Wake County school system is now facing the threat of another federal civil rights complaint.

In this letter sent today to Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Advocates for Children’s Services charge that the school system is violating the civil rights of students with Spanish-speaking parents by only sending them important notices in English. The letter cites examples of three limited English proficient parents not getting information in Spanish about their children’s long-term suspension notices and special-education services.

The groups contend that failure to provide the parents of these Hispanic students the information in their primary language violates Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act. The groups charge that Wake “has a clear legal duty” to provide documents on suspensions and special education in Spanish to Spanish-speaking parents.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST FOR WAKE'S RESPONSE

The Special Education Advisory Council is holding its 4th annual Special Education Open House for Wake County parents on Thursday.

The theme of this year's forum is "What's the Big IDEA" referring to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The open house is being held at Broughton High School in Raleigh.

The event starts with a Resource Expo at 6 p.m. featuring agencies, businesses and groups from the Wake County area. At 7 p.m., Assistant Superintendent for Special Education Lisa Grillo will address the crowd before various information sessions are held.

The open house is free and open to the public. Click here to register.

It's time for parents of Wake County's more than 19,000 special-education students to have their say on the quality of the district's special-education services.

Wake's Office of Special Education Services is conducting an online survey for feedback from parents of students with disabilities. Surveys will be taken until Dec. 30.

Click here to take the survey. Parents are asked to only take the survey once.

The Great Schools in Wake Coalition is blasting the decision to convert Hilburn Elementary to a K-8 campus and the creation of two single-sex leadership school as "foreshadowing future chaos for Wake County residents."

In a press release today, GSIW says it's "deeply concerned over recent decisions by the Wake County Board of Education to use expensive and poorly analyzed reconfigurations of several school buildings as a means of repairing problems of its own making." It also says the decisions "highlight the Board’s willingness to rush important decisions without obtaining adequate input from the community or studying the facts."

The group blames the Hilburn decision on school board member Deborah Prickett's efforts to convert Leesville Road Middle back to a traditional calendar. GSIW questions the costs of the conversion, placing kindergartners and eighth-graders in the same building and whether enough families will choose the school.

It looks like we have a split between Wake County school board member Keith Sutton and the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children over the newly created single-gender leadership academies.

In a press release today, CCCAAC calls the creation of the schools "a troubling decision" with "the hurried approval of the academies (as) another example of the reckless decision-making by the board majority." It questions the academic effectiveness of single-sex schools that Sutton joined the majority in backing.

CCCAAC doesn't buy Superintendent Tony Tata's argument that the schools will be cheaper than the ones they're modeled on from Guilford County. Also citing how those Guilford schools are almost all black, CCCAAC calls them "costly schools to resegregate and reassign without community input."

CCCAAC also complains about how the academies will displace special-education students. They also complain that the money spent making the academies ready "means that other school projects, such as repairs to existing facilities, are being placed on hold."

The Wake County school board reached into Superintendent Tony Tata's former school district tonight to fill the new position of assistant superintendent for special education services.

Lisa Grillo, a former special education teacher who is currently a principal in D.C. Public Schools, was hired for the new assistant superintendent's position. Tata was D.C.'s chief operating officer before being hired by Wake.

Tata created Grillo's new position as part of a reorganization of his leadership team. Her salary was not immediately known.

UPDATE

Grillo's salary is $120,000.

I apologize for not having posted this sooner but Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata will meet Thursday night with parents of special-education students.

The meet-and-greet with Tata will take place from 6-8 p.m. at Marbles Kids Museum, 201 E. Hargett Street in downtown Raleigh. No RSVP is necessary and  refreshments will be served.

The event is sponsored by the Arc of Wake County, the Triangle Down Syndrome Network and the Wake County Autism Society.

The state Department of Public Instruction is ordering the Wake County school system to develop a new alternative program after determining that was put in place to replace the Richard Milburn High School isn't enough.

Wake had dropped Richard Milburn last year for budgetary reasons, replacing it with an online program to serve long-term suspended students. But in a DPI investigation of Wake's special-ed services, the state found that the new program wasn't adequate for meeting the needs of students with disabilities.

In the absence of Richard Milburn, the report noted that around 200 long-term students were receiving instruction at home on weekends and after-school. But the report found that the Wake was providing these students with less than six hours of weekly instruction.

The Orange County Special Education PTA will meet for the first time this week.

Following this summer's court battle concerning the education of a student with autism (which is still ongoing - visit the mother's blog for updates), some parents say this group couldn't come soon enough.

The meeting will take place Thursday from 6 to 6:30 p.m. at AL Stanback Middle School's media center, 3200 NC 86 South in Hillsborough.

The introductory meeting will be immediately followed by a parent information session on public health funding programs for special needs children, which will last until 8:30 p.m.

DPS parents are forming a PTA focused on the needs of exceptional children, or those students identified being gifted or as having disabilities.

Wake County has their own special education PTA and now the Durham Council of PTAs is hoping to launch their own. The Exceptional Children's PTA will meet tonight for the first time from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Greystone Baptist Church at 2601 Hillsborough Rd.