Education Rights

Highlights of Our Work

A Valley News headline from May 2017 describing the agreement that the Temecula Valley Unified School District had reached to resolve the complaint that Advancing Justice-LA filed concerning the District's English Learner programs.

In 2014, Advancing Justice-LA filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights (OCR) against Temecula Valley Unified School District (TVUSD) on behalf of a concerned teacher for failing to provide its middle school English Learner (EL) students with adequate language support, and in some cases, eliminating all EL services. OCR found evidence that many EL students in TVUSD middle schools were not receiving proper services and some students received little or no support, preventing them from learning. OCR also found that TVUSD’s practices resulting EL students missing the opportunity to receive special help in accessing the core curriculum, which were provided to non-EL students. Based on evidence gathered during its investigation, OCR added a third issue to its investigation: whether TVUSD adequately notifies parents that do not speak English fluently of information that is called to the attention of other parents. OCR did not complete its investigation because it entered into a resolution agreement with TVUSD. Under the agreement, TVUSD will convene a coordinating committee comprised of an EL expert, EL teachers, EL parents, and a district administrator to revise the EL Master Plan to address deficiencies raised by the complaint and investigation, train teachers on how to implement the Master Plan effectively, and compensatory education for EL students that did not receive any ELD instruction. OCR will monitor TVUSD until it fulfills all requirements of the agreement.