EL PASO COURT OF APPEALS REVERSES AND REMANDS LAWSUIT AGAINST CLINT ISD

PARENTS CAN PROCEED WITH LAWSUIT ALLEGING VIOLATIONS OF TEXAS CONSTITUTION 

FOR FUNDING DISPARITIES

 

EL PASO, TX, SEPTEMBER 25, 2014 – Today, the El Paso Eighth Court of Appeals announced a precedent-setting decision involving intra-school district funding in Texas. In overturning the previous dismissal of the lawsuit in El Paso state district court, the Court found that complaints by parents in the Clint Independent School District of unequal and unequitable funding for certain schools within the district are constitutional by nature.  Therefore, the parents did not have to go through school district’s administrative process first in addressing these complaints. Texas Civil Rights Project cooperating pro bono attorney Ralph Miller, of Weil, Gotshal and Manges handled the parents’ successful appeal before the Court.

 

The decision will allow parents of Clint ISD students to proceed with their lawsuit, which will show how the Clint ISD’s disparate funding unfairly and unjustly punishes students in the Horizon City and Montana Vista areas. The parents, through the Paso del Norte Civil Rights Project and co-counsel, Carlos Eduardo Cardenas, will continue to seek a court-ordered corrective injunction, requiring the District to equalize funding for all students in the same grade level, regardless of the school they attend.

 

“For years, parents and students have complained about substantial differences in spending for academic and sports programs at the different schools in Clint ISD and the District’s self-reported numbers reflect this,” said Jed Untereker, Legal Director of Paso del Norte Civil Rights Project. “Education is critical to the economic, political, and social fabric of our society communities, and the parents in this lawsuit and all parents of students in Montana Vista and Horizon City deserve the right to show that they are being cheated. This case will be a milestone for the efforts to equalize intra-districting throughout all of Texas school districts”

 

This case now moves back to the 205^thDistrict Court of El Paso County for trial.

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For more information, please contact Jed Untereker at 915-532-3799, x.15. 

See official .pdf Press Release attached.

Paso del Norte Civil Rights Project is the El Paso office of the Texas Civil Rights Project.