A Wisconsin mother accused her dyslexic son’s school of denying him additional support because he is white.
Colbey Decker said the Green Bay Area School District is discriminating against his son by prioritizing racial minority students for access to special education services.
According The telegraphMs. Decker said in a letter threatening legal action last week that her son, who is in fourth grade, was denied entry to his school’s literacy program for nearly a year because he was not a minority. racial.
That’s because her son’s school, King Elementary in Green Bay, has a policy that allocates additional resources to students based on their race, meaning that if Ms. Decker’s son were black, Hispanic or First Nations, would have already been receiving adequate support.
The Wisconsin school board has launched an internal investigation following Ms. Decker’s claim.
Ms. Decker’s son was diagnosed with dyslexia in 2022 and she sought additional support for him shortly after he enrolled in the school district earlier this year.
Although she provided the appropriate documentation necessary for the reading interventions she requested, Ms. Decker stated that her son was placed on a waiting list for a group reading program that did not meet his needs.
According to an excerpt from Green Bay’s King Elementary School, one of the school’s priorities is to provide “additional resources to First Nations, Black and Hispanic students.”
A Wisconsin mother accused her dyslexic son’s school of denying him additional support because he is white.
Image of King Elementary School in Green Bay
Speaking to the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, the attorney who is helping the mother prepare legal action, Ms. Decker said, “He is being pushed out of high-performing children’s services.”
“I couldn’t believe someone would deny services because of the color of their skin,” he added.
According to the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, programs that receive federal funds are prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race.
“I never imagined that today we could look at a child and say, ‘Sorry, you’re not getting reading support because we’re going to give it to someone else,'” Ms. Decker said.
“Any time a child is late in receiving services, it affects them for the rest of their life because I can’t get that time back.”
“My job as a mother is to defend my children.”
“I would like to see the Green Bay school district adopt a completely color-blind policy and provide services to anyone who needs help,” Ms. Decker added.
DailyMail.com contacted the Green Bay Area Public School District for comment.