High school students at the D.C. Jail have reached a settlement in a lawsuit over the city’s failure to provide incarcerated students with adequate education during the pandemic.

Three students at the D.C. Jail first filed the lawsuit in 2021; they were enrolled in the Inspiring Youth Program which is run by D.C. Public Schools inside the jail to meet the special education needs of incarcerated students. The students alleged DCPS never resumed classes after pausing in March 2020 for the COVID-19 pandemic. For more than a year, students did not meet with teachers or receive the specialized instruction mandated by law; instead, they received worksheets dropped off sporadically, which were often inaccessible for students with disabilities but expected to be completed without any guidance or instruction.

The settlement agreement, filed Monday, provides compensatory education packages to students at the jail who were denied an adequate education during the pandemic, and appoints Maya Angelou Public Charter School Academy as the jail’s special education provider. It also requires the city to fund a third-party auditor who will ensure the city complies with the agreement and follows the mandates of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

IDEA, a federal law, requires D.C. to provide incarcerated residents with special education services in accordance with their individualized education programs, or IEPs. Beyond just classes or coursework, IEPs often involve individualized therapy like occupational therapy, speech or language therapy, or post-secondary counseling that helps students plan for the rest of their lives — all of which students at the D.C. Jail went without for over a year.

The settlement agreement requires Maya Angelou, the new education provider, to ensure that verbal instruction corresponding with their IEP happens continuously for students, that students have all educational materials and technology like tablets to complete their coursework, and that students are supported in going to and from their in-person lessons, appointments, and counseling sessions.

“This landmark settlement agreement provides an opportunity for young people incarcerated at the D.C. Jail during COVID-19 to earn their high school diplomas,” said Kaitlin Banner, Deputy Legal Director at Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights & Urban Affairs, one of the law firms representing the students.  The School Justice Project and the law firm Terris, Pavlik, and Millian are also representing the students. “A functioning high school at the D.C. Jail is an essential way to help students thrive and become healthy, successful adults. Without an education, young people struggle to gain critical skills and support themselves.”

While there are other education programs offered at facilities managed by the city’s Department of Corrections, like college classes and special GED-track programs, D.C. Public Schools is required to offer the same special education high school courses students in the community receive for students up through age 22. For those students, this may be the last opportunity to receive specialized instruction before being transferred to a federal prison. Unlike in all other states, D.C. does not have its own prison. This means that D.C. residents convicted of a local offense could spend time in a federal prison miles away from home, where education services are also lacking. In February of this year, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, alongside the School Justice Project and the law firm Nixon Peabody, filed a lawsuit alleging that D.C. also fails to provide students at federal prisons with the adequate special education curriculum required by law.

According to Tayo Belle, a managing attorney at the School Justice Project, there are typically 40 students enrolled in DCPS’  jail education programs on a day-to-day basis. The plaintiff class for the lawsuit spans roughly 175 students, according to Belle, who will be compensated as a part of the settlement. Part of the third-party auditor’s job, which will be led by a court-appointed attorney Grace Lopes, is to ensure the D.C. Jail provides those students with education classes, specialized counseling, and post-secondary opportunities.

“A couple of our named plaintiffs, they’re going to start in college programs and they’re psyched about that,” Belle said in an interview with DCist/WAMU. “They’re obviously happy for the changes that are occurring at the jail for those that are going to come along after them.”

“I’m thankful that I got to help people get the education that they need. I’m going to keep fighting for it to be better,” said Charles H., one of the plaintiffs, in a press release issued by the law firms on Monday.

When the lawsuit was first filed, the plaintiffs and their representatives sought a preliminary injunction from the court to ensure classes could resume in a timely fashion as the case made its way through the trial process. That preliminary injunction was granted in June 2021. But, according to the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, DCPS was still not providing sufficient education; they filed a contempt order against D.C. in February of 2022.

Since then, lawyers say conditions have improved. In the 2021-2022 school year, Maya Angelou first began hosting an alternative school at the jail, working with students who have IEPs, and the academy marked its first graduating class in June of 2022. Maya Angelou also provides education services at New Beginnings and the Youth Services Center, two detention centers within the city’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services.

“With the oversight of the court and the bringing in of a new provider with a lot more experience, we’ve seen that instruction resumed and students have been able to access services at much higher rates than during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Banner.

The now-settled lawsuit marks just one legal action in a series of filings taken by advocates over the years to improve conditions for residents living in the custody of the city’s department of corrections. In April of this year, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee sued the D.C. Department of Corrections over the D.C. Jail’s failure to provide residents with adequate medical care, alleging that the jail’s “deliberate” medical neglect denied some residents life-saving care. In 2020, residents at the jail filed a class-action lawsuit against DOC for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. That suit was settled in February 2022, nearly two years later, as DOC agreed to undergo five random inspections to ensure the facility complied with coronavirus safety protocols.