a state investigation by the New Jersey Department of Education found Trenton Public Schools had violated the individuals with disabilities Education Act and state regulations the investigation comes after disability rights NJ filed a complaint with NJ DOE in May it alleged that all students from out of home placements face barriers and delays getting back in the classroom and that delays lasted from weeks to years sometimes while receiving no education at all senior correspondent Joanna Gagis has more enrollment is supposed to be immediate so once the parent either completed the online enrollment form or went to the Board of Education offices and enrolled their child that student should have been placed in school immediately Lisa Quartarolo is an attorney with disability rights an organization that represents young people with disabilities they recently filed a complaint with the State Department of Education against the Trenton school district for failing to reenroll youth coming back from out of home placements a number of students who work in out of home placements primarily in detention centers but there were also students returning from other facilities where they may have sought mental health treatment and they were having trouble getting back into the Trenton Public Schools when these students were trying to return to school what were they being told why were they denied they were being asked to reenroll so they would have to bring their re-enrollment forms and then uh although the law states that they should be immediately re enrolled sometimes time days weeks were going by when the enrollment was not completed some of the students had been placed in an add a district placement that was terminated while they were in an out of home placement so when they came back they technically did not have a placement disability rights has worked with around 25 students who were affected by this in just the last four years following their complaint the state opened an investigation into the district and found it was not compliant with state regulations or the individuals with disabilities Education Act known as idea those findings were released earlier this month and the Department of Education is now requiring the Trenton schools to create a corrective action plan schools need to have consistent policies and procedures in place to reactivate students when they come home from Youth Detention Center uh many of these students have already been excluded from public school for some period of time and shouldn't face the consequences of schools not having the proper policies or processes in place to reintegrate them into the communities we reached out to the Trenton Public School District for comment but received no response in May the district's School Board attorney did Issue a written response to the allegations made in the complaint saying the district had developed a standard operating procedure to address the issues raised that has been a work in progress for quite some time but is now finalized but corduro says they haven't seen it nor has she seen a board vote vote on it I'm hopeful that the fact that we took this action and that these findings came out not only validate our position but take away the school district's premise of the issues been resolved the concerns of groups like disability rights and the ACLU go beyond these students need for an education we know that at risk kids need more resources not less right and schools provide stability educ ation and a way for kidss to become thriving members of their Community without those resources their chances of re-entering the criminal legal system increase any student that's Justice impacted is already involved in the school to prison pipeline that we're trying to break so there is a chance of recidivism and very often a condition of the students return to home is that they be in school and so we periodically have to issue education reports and the judges do not like to hear when it's been two or 3 weeks and we come back and say the student is still not in school Quartarolo says disability rights will be watching to see whether new policies are instated when students return to school in September for NJ Spotlight news I'm Joanna Gagis [Music]