Families who sued over the closure of Providence’s 360 High School have entered into a with the school district, Rhode Island Department of Education, Providence School Board and state Commissioner of Education Angélica Infante-Green. The settlement does not reverse the shutdown but details changes that must be made to the plan to merge the school with the Juanita Sanchez Educational Complex. Those include specific initiatives to prioritize the needs of English learners and their parents and opportunities for displaced staff to apply for positions at the newly merged school.

The impending closure of a small Rhode Island high school has prompted some rare pushback: Spanish-speaking families have brought a federal class-action against the Providence Public School District, Providence School Board, state Department of Education and state education commissioner under the . With an argument that traces a direct line back to Brown vs. Board of Education, the plaintiffs are claiming that the shutdown of 360 High School violates the students’ and their families’ right to an equal education.

Typically, the act is invoked after a denial of guaranteed services. But these plaintiffs are bringing a case to preserve a school that they say already meets their needs. Attorney Jennifer Wood, director of the Rhode Island Center for Justice, said the act codified in law that schools must remove barriers for English learners and their parents. The act was based on the Supreme Court’s ruling in a 1973 case called , which descended from Brown and determined that failing to provide supplemental language classes violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 14th Amendment.

Describing an “arc of history” from Brown through to the 1974 legislation, Wood said, “Each one of those redefines who gets to be in public schools and how we are going to fully include them.”

In February, Providence district leaders, under state oversight, unexpectedly announced that 360 was slated for a “merger” at the end of the academic year. Students, but not teachers or administrators, would be absorbed into the Juanita Sanchez Educational Complex’s new Life Sciences Institute. 

District and state leaders said closing 360 would benefit its students by providing them access to programs Juanita Sanchez runs through partnerships with the state Department of Health, alongside internships and research opportunities with local industry collaborators, labs and hospitals. They cited 360’s . “I have to make some very tough decisions,” Superintendent Javier Montañez said at a City Council meeting. “I’m going to do everything I can to protect my students.” The merger was to save the district $1.5 million to 2 million.

But 360’s families and staff were not convinced. Math teacher Ellen Foley, who has worked at the school since its founding nine years ago, said in an interview that it follows a clear philosophy: “You’re building a community when you build a school.” In a district where students choose their high school at the end of eighth grade, 360’s families specifically selected the school in part due to its reputation for supporting English learners. The students —  of whom don’t speak the language at home — take English classes that are co-taught by ESL teachers, and Student Council meetings are conducted in English and Spanish. 

Hundreds of alumni, parents, teachers, staff and students attended meetings of the , , and committees to plead for the closure decision to be reversed. There were protests and rallies. Some meetings required and were so crowded that police were called. At one meeting, 360 senior Michael Isom said, “They didn’t let me speak and they didn’t let my mother speak. They don’t let certain people speak.” 

Still, community members advocated wherever they could be heard. At school board meetings, they donned custom T-shirts and passed out bright orange and blue stickers proclaiming “Save 360.” They pointed to data showing that 360 the district in nearly every category in terms of how community stakeholders feel about their schools.

After Wood learned about the school’s forthcoming closure from student activists, she attended a February school board meeting that lasted nearly four hours. She listened as parent Lucia Mejia told the board through a Spanish translator that her nonverbal son was confused about the closure and testified to “the love that he has for going to school.”

But at every meeting, district and state leaders repeated that their decision to close 360 was irreversible, and families began to look for other options. Wood met with several who had testified. “The words they used with us were, ‘We want to fight for our children,’ ” she said. Plaintiffs told Wood their experiences at 360 High School were far better than those at other schools in the district. “They had really good communication from the school, which was a contrast to their prior experiences,” said Wood.

They were also concerned about their children’s safety at other schools, citing fears that they wouldn’t be told if something went wrong or that communication wouldn’t be conducted in a language they understood. And they worried that students hadn’t been given adequate transition planning for shifting over to the new school. Already, at least 17 of the 286 students enrolled at 360 have decided not to attend Juanita Sanchez and are choosing other options.

Wood believed the families had a strong case to stop the closure under the Equal Educational Opportunities Act and filed a against Providence Public School District, Providence School Board, the state Department of Education and Commissioner of Education Angélica Infante-Green on April 22. 

Juanita Sanchez, the lawsuit says, has been classified as low-performing for 13 years, about a decade longer than 360. And while only of 360’s English learners met growth targets on standardized assessments, Wood said families fear they will not receive a stronger education elsewhere. The district has for years to with the act and provide appropriate services for students with limited or no English. 

Wood filed a motion for preliminary injunction on April 29, asking the court to halt the closure of 360 until a decision is reached in the case. District spokesman Jay Wegimont declined to comment on the lawsuit other than to say the district and state “acted in the best interests of students and are committed to expanding access to high-quality learning opportunities for all students, including multilingual learners.” 

On June 6, Chief Judge John McConnell of the United States District Court of Rhode Island ​​denied a motion by the defendants for summary judgment and ordered that the parties enter an expedited discovery process. After that, he will rule on the preliminary injunction. While Wood and the plaintiffs are pushing for a decision as soon as possible, it may not come before the last day of school on June 24. 

But the end of the school year would not mean the end of the lawsuit. If a preliminary injunction is granted after June 24, the school closure will still be halted until the court decides the case. Displaced 360 teachers and administrators, including some who have taken jobs at other district schools, would need to be reinstated, and student placements would need to be adjusted. Wood said this sort of last-minute shuffling is sometimes hard for the community, but it has been done before in the case of lawsuits or settlements in various urban districts.

In school closure cases where a preliminary injunction was not granted, lawsuits have proceeded even after specific schools shut their doors for good. Though the eventual rulings did not save particular schools, they could still have an impact on the procedure followed in future closure decisions. 

Even if the preliminary injunction is granted, the district could close 360 later. Depending on the eventual outcome of the case, what that would look like for students and families could change. 
Meanwhile, at 360, Foley said the students, teachers and families are pushing forward — focused on celebrating their “wonderful community” and “closing with dignity and celebration” — before their potential last-ever day of school. But Wood believes that if her case prevails, English learners could “get a pathway forward where their needs and perspectives are taken into consideration.”

“I accepted it, because I didn’t know any better,” said Tieu, who didn’t find encouragement from her own Vietnamese family either. “My father was like, ‘Oh, I’m so surprised that they selected you to be the principal.’ ”

A decade later, Tieu has not only been an assistant principal and principal, she’s now in charge of student support services for the Houston Independent School District — the eighth-largest school system in the U.S. But as an Asian woman and a single mother, she still feels pressure to prove herself in a male-dominated field.

“I spend double the time to make sure that everything I produce is 100% — nothing less,” she said.

The comment about Tieu’s height — and job prospects — is among the anecdotes district and state leaders shared as part of a first-of-its-kind of women serving in high-level school positions. Conducted by , a 300-member national network, the results show that despite ascending to senior roles in school systems and state departments, the vast majority of female leaders experience bias and think often about quitting. Over 80% of the 110 women who responded, from 27 states, said they feel they have to watch how they dress, speak and act because they are in the spotlight as senior leaders.

“I have found myself in high-powered meetings where men in leadership roles do not even look at me, but instead address my male colleagues,” said Angélica Infante-Green, Rhode Island education commissioner and a Women Leading Ed board member. “In a world where traditional notions of leadership have been predominantly shaped by men, there exists a profound need for diversity in representation.”

The survey, one expert said, comes at a time when districts could benefit from strengths many women bring to the table.

“Women who come up through this pipeline have often been elementary school principals and that sometimes precludes them from being selected as superintendents,” said Rachel White, a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, assistant professor. She launched , a research center, last summer to improve data collection on school system leaders. It’s common, she said, for school boards to view high school principals, who are , as more authoritarian or to prefer someone with a background in finance. “The type of leadership we need right now around family and student engagement and curriculum and instruction — elementary school principals really get that right.” 

But many women leaders say they face a double standard. 

“When a man in leadership takes time to coach his child’s sports team, he is applauded,” Infante-Green said. “If I choose to attend my daughter’s dance recital over a meeting, I am judged much differently.”

One leader quoted in the report said she was told to wear a skirt instead of pants to a presentation so she didn’t “come off as intimidating.” , Hispanic and Asian-American women were even more likely to feel pressure related to their behavior — 55%, compared with 36% for white women. One Black leader’s colleagues said the way she greeted students with “What’s up” made them uncomfortable because she was “speaking Ebonics.”

Tieu, in Houston, said students are often surprised to see a minority woman, especially an Asian woman, in leadership. 

“I want to show these young ladies that there’s nothing wrong with having aspirations,” she said. “There are going to be moments in time when you have to overcome barriers, but be smart and learn from it.”

The survey results build on the conducted by ILO Group, a women-owned firm focused on education policy and leadership. Nationally, over 20% of the nation’s 500 largest school districts saw turnover at the top, according to the 2023 results. Among women, the rate was slightly higher — 26%.

The most recent analysis also showed that even with a modest increase in the number appointed to superintendent positions, women still represent less than a third of those leading school districts. Women, however, make up 80% of the teacher workforce and more than half of school principals. 

Julia Rafal-Baer, CEO of Women Leading Ed and ILO, called it a “glass cliff,” and said when women reach higher ranks, they“nearly universally experience bias that impacts their ability to do their job, how they feel about their work and their overall well-being.”

Sixty percent of women leaders said they think about quitting due to stress, and of those, three-quarters said they contemplate leaving on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Loren Widmer, director of student services for the Affton School District, outside St. Louis, left a neighboring system after unsuccessful efforts to advance into administration.

“I really felt like the only potential way to move ahead in that district was to be part of the good old boys club,” she said. “If you didn’t go to school there, play on the football team and come up through the ranks, there was no chance that you would progress.”

That became clear to her in 2017 when she was in line for an assistant principal job. The district offered her a 9 a.m. interview on a Friday, the same morning she was scheduled to have a C-section. She asked for an alternative time — even a virtual interview at noon the same day of her son’s birth — but the official turned her down. The position later went to a man.

‘Among all these men’

The new survey follows a that Rafal-Baer initiated on LinkedIn, asking women leaders to share some of the worst comments they’ve heard along their “professional journey.” Some of the nation’s top education leaders weighed in.

“A … colleague said (in front of the others), ‘You must be really proud to be the only woman among all these men,’ and then squeezed my shoulder a little longer than anyone needed,“ recalled Carolyne Quintana, a deputy chancellor for the New York City schools.

Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, shared a comment she heard as a new mom. 

“An older male colleague bitterly complained he wished he’d gotten a three-month vacation after I got back from a horrible, miserable, painful maternity leave,” she wrote. 

And Daylene Long, CEO of a STEM education company, posted that someone told her, “Being competitive is not an attractive trait in a woman.”

‘You don’t have to choose’

But some leaders also see signs of progress. 

In Affton, Widmer’s district, half of the top-level staff and four of the five principals are women. She thinks the support women feel contributes to the district’s stability. 

“You don’t have to choose between staying home with your sick kids or leading a department,” Widmer said. “You can do both.”

And in the early months of the pandemic, Infante-Green participated in daily with then-Gov. Gina Raimondo and Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott, the former state health director. A mother even sent the commissioner a card with Superwoman on it as a thank you for inspiring her daughter. 

“In that moment, it dawned on me that our presence together at those news conferences was more than just symbolic; it was a powerful statement of solidarity and resilience,” she said. “It sent a positive message that in Rhode Island, leadership knows no gender boundaries.”