Court orders TUSD to restore long-term suspension program

KOLD News 6-6:30 p.m. recurring
Published: Mar. 28, 2022 at 7:16 PM MST
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TUCSON, Ariz. (KOLD News 13) - A federal court has now ordered Tucson Unified School District to restore DAEP, the District Alternative Education Program.

This dispute between TUSD and the plaintiffs in the more than 40 year old desegregation case has been going on since the start of the year.

DAEP is a voluntary alternative to long-term suspension.

The plaintiffs told the court the district tried to tackle severe district-wide staffing shortages by combining middle and high school students into one DAEP class, offering abeyance contracts rather than DAEP, and reducing staff in the DAEP program.

They argued those issues threatened the rights of at-risk students.

The federal court ruled the district can’t do that and the program must return to it’s pre-pandemic state until the district prepares an analysis for DAEP changes.

TUSD has maintained throughout that it didn’t change the program.

Here’s TUSD’s response to this latest court order.

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