$9.7 million in water crisis settlement funding to go to special education in Flint

More than a decade after the beginning of the Flint Water Crisis, the community's schools will see $9.7 million in state school special education funding from a court settlement.

Attorneys and officials with the Education Law Center said on Thursday said the settlement, which will be in an established special education fund, will be used to tackle longstanding special education problems in the city and struggling school district .

While the $9.7 million figure has been an agreed-upon figure for four years, attorneys hailed Thursday's announcement as the "final step" in a class-action lawsuit filed in October 2016 in the aftermath of the water crisis, which left high levels of lead in the city's drinking water.

"What this settlement does is address those systemic problems that were underlying even before the water crisis, and then necessarily encompasses the students who had disabilities that were exacerbated and may have been caused by the water crisis," said Jessica Levin, litigation director with the Education Law Center.

That's an ambitious mission: $9.7 million is a little more than what Flint Community Schools forecasts it spends in a year — $9.2 million — on its special education budget, according to school district budget documents .

About 24% of Flint Community Schools' students require special education services, compared with 15% in the 2014-15 school year, according to state data. That's just in the school district. Many more students attend Flint charter schools or other school districts in Genesee County. And then there's the students who have moved on: Many students have left the district, either by graduating, dropping out or moving out of Flint entirely.

Attorneys said the settlement agreement tries to "make sure that all students are touched by the settlement one way or another," but that it largely focuses in on Flint and Genesee.

What settlement sets out to do

The agreement includes $1.6 million for creating a partnership with the University of Michigan-Flint to fund a pipeline of special education teachers and social workers to be trained at the university, with incentives such as tuition reimbursement and transportation for educators who agree to work in Flint or Genesee schools for at least three years, according to Bonitsu Kitaba, deputy legal director at the ACLU of Michigan.

"It's an investment in actually improving structures to ensure that the special education services that Flint and GISD will provide are really top notch and based on best practices," she said.

The money will also be used for, according to the ACLU:

• $2.5 million for a review team that will create special education plans individualized to student needs and train teachers.
• Up to $700,000 for an outside firm to evaluate the school district and its delivery of special education services.
• $550,000 will go to preschool programs in Flint.
• $2.5 million will go to hiring three behavioral support staff members for five years, two of whom will work at Flint district schools and one staff member allocated to work at other schools within the Genesee Intermediate School District.
• $1.67 million will go to hiring two literacy specialists for five years for the community's schools.

Lead-exposed children

The ACLU of Michigan and Education Law Center filed suit against the state, Flint Community Schools and Genesee Intermediate School District in 2016, claiming that while the water crisis poisoned thousands of children attending public schools, the state had not mounted an effective response to manage increased special education needs. Even before the crisis, attorneys argued, public education in Flint failed children, using low graduation rates and high dropout rates as evidence.

One then-8-year-old plaintiff cited in the suit as "C.D.M." was exposed to lead-contaminated water for at least 18 months, according to the initial complaint . Over that period, the child with ADHD did not grow or put on any weight, and behavioral issues at school, such as refusing to work or sit down in class, escalated. Instead of recognizing that C.D.M.'s disability needed to be reevaluated in the wake of lead exposure, the complaint alleges the child was disciplined repeatedly, and once handcuffed for nearly an hour by a school police officer, publicly humiliated in front of his peers.

The case was partially settled in 2018 when the state agreed to fund a program to screen every child for disabilities associated with lead exposure . It's taken four years to negotiate the parameters and use of the settlement money.

Flint residents poisoned by the drinking water are also due more than $600 million as part of a larger settlement from the state for the crisis, but have not seen a penny. A Free Press analysis found others , including attorneys and private companies linked with the suit, have received millions.

Contact Lily Altavena: laltavena@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: $9.7 million in water crisis settlement funding to go to special education in Flint