More than 50 Somali Bantu refugees enrolled in Pittsburgh Public Schools claim the district has unnecessarily segregated them and failed to communicate appropriately with the students and their parents.

	Martha Rial, Post-Gazette Bahati Muya pauses during an exercise on telling time in an English as a Second Language class at Schenley High School in December. Muya, a Somalian Bantu, came to Pittsburgh last year after living in a refugee camp in Kenya. Click photo for larger image.

That's according to a complaint sent yesterday to the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education by the Education Law Center on behalf of the students and their parents.

"As a result of the district failures, the Somali students and their families have been isolated, harassed and left out of school programs and activities," said Nancy Hubley, attorney for the center, a nonprofit public interest law center.

The complaint states, "Although we agree that some students need the small group instruction provided in the ESL classroom for a part of the school day, we continue to object to the level of segregation to which the Somali students have been subjected."

While she believes the district lacks an appropriate plan or policy for the Somali students, Hubley noted many teachers and school staff are working hard to meet the students' needs.

The complaint seeks an order requiring adequate system for interpretation and translation, integration of Somali students with other students and training for teachers and other school staff.

Pat Crawford, city school district spokeswoman, yesterday said she had not yet seen the complaint.

Before coming to Pittsburgh, most of the children and many of the adults had no formal education and had spent years in refugee camps awaiting relocation.

The Somali immigrants are members of a group of about 150 Somalis the federal government resettled in Pittsburgh. They are among more than 14,000 Somali Muslims being resettled throughout the nation who fled civil war and ethnic persecution in their native Somalia. About 70 percent of the refugees are children.

The complaint describes the education problems this way:

The school year began without enough planning for the students, resulting in two persistent problems: an inadequate system for communicating about school-related matters with students and parents and the "unnecessary segregation" of the Somali students within the school program.

For communication, the district relied on district employees who speak Swahili to speak to some of the Somalis who speak some Swahili as a second language. Even though they had little experience with public education or formal translation, these Somalis then were to translate the messages into Somali and relay them for the other families.

The district also has relied on English-speaking community volunteers, which the complaint said are "scarce and inconsistent."

The ineffective communication system led to problems with orientation, enrollment delays, transportation snafus, special education evaluations, confusion over school expectations and a lack of information to parents on meetings and activities.

"The communication problems have also exacerbated conflicts between the Somali students and their peers. Somali students are singled out and physically assaulted and harassed on the basis of national origin, with American students fighting with them on the buses and on the playgrounds and verbally harassing them in the hallways, cafeterias and rest rooms," the complaint states.

These types of problems -- such as being told to "go back to Africa" -- took place in elementary, middle and high schools.

The Somali students were assigned to English as a second language classrooms -- ones created just for them at Miller Elementary and Schenley High School and an existing one in which they were segregated by national origin at Frick International Studies Academy middle school.

Although Schenley had an existing ESL classroom, the students were "isolated and segregated" in a classroom in the basement created only for Somali students. It states that other refugees from the same refugee camps as the Somali students were placed in existing ESL classrooms.

"As a result, all of the Somali children have spent most of the school year and all of their school day in the Somali-only ESL classrooms," the complaint states.

The complaint focuses on protection provided in federal laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Educational Opportunity Act.

Before filing the action, Hubley said, the center met with district administrators and unsuccessfully sought help from the state Department of Education and the state Department of Public Welfare.

More Somali students are expected to be enrolled in the fall.