Pregnant Students Policy IMSA allegedly violated Title IX for over thirty years with a policy that required women and girls to sign special waivers. Students who became pregnant were threatened with constructive expulsion. IMSA board members voted for this policy over and over again, raising questions about their dedication to respecting the rights of children.

IMSA is the last public school in Illinois turning away children who use a wheelchairIMSA admits that it provides no services pursuant to Section 504 or IDEA to any student. Highly selective schools typically report an enrollment of 3%-9% students with disabilities, not zero.

IMSA admits to having no commuters For over thirty years, IMSA has allegedly used its residential program as a pretext for discrimination. IMSA administrators should know that it may be flagrant discrimination to require children to sleep in a state bed as a condition of enrolling in a math and science diploma program. Sleeping in a state bed is not necessarily appropriate for some children with disabilities, many of whom may live within a modest commute. Additionally, failing to inform families of their rights may also be discriminatory.

Admissions personnel may engage in discriminatory conductIMSA admissions personnel appear to engage in the prohibited practice of “counseling out” children with disabilities. Admissions must not discourage children with disabilities from applying or enrolling.

IMSA demonstrates “hostility” to programming for children with disabilitiesAn analysis conducted by the U.S. Department of Education's contracted experts found that IMSA demonstrated some hostility to programming required for children with disabilities. IMSA did not adequately act to rectify this finding, as it still had no children officially receiving any services several years later.

IMSA lacks compassion for childrenIMSA requires children to: “be able to care for oneself (sic) and live and work independently, with reasonable accommodation.” This is a standard written for college-level programs and is generally not lawful in a public program for children. Public educators, as a rule, know that they must provide personal assistance to children through the high school level. IMSA is the only public educational program in Illinois thats reserves the right to automatically exclude children who need assistance due to disabilities.

IMSA allows children to sit at home with no educationIMSA reserves the right to put children on medical leave. Children are not to be put on medical leave in public education—they must be provided adequate daily instruction and related services even if homebound or hospitalized. A request for records showed that there were 25 times in the last three years where an IMSA student was absent more than 10 consecutive days. IMSA had no records or logs to demonstrate that these children received an education. IMSA also may be engaging in systemic discrimination by penalizing children for excused absences related to health or disability.

IMSA requires students to forfeit most aids and servicesIMSA does not provide any special education and related services, adequate supplementary aids, personal services, diagnostics, the services of a child psychologist, or transportation. This is almost certainly systemic discrimination.

IMSA has an IEP and 504 forfeiture schemeIMSA requires students to forfeit IEPs and 504 plans. This is likely systemic discrimination. IMSA also does not guarantee children a proper evaluation pursuant to Section 504, nor does it convene conventional IEP teams. Since about 1978, public schools have been required to provide evaluations, including medical and psychological diagnostics, at no cost to families. Failing to do so is typically adjudicated as systemic discrimination.

IMSA students often drop out of school due to declining healthEvery year, a handful of IMSA students withdraw for “health” reasons. Since IMSA has an IEP and 504 plan forfeiture scheme, appears not to guarantee compliant evaluations, and does not convene IEP teams, some of these withdrawals may be preventable.

IMSA engages in racial profiling schemes IMSA administrators, as public employees of the State of Illinois, appear to engage in coordinated schemes to racially profile children under the color of law, possibly doing so as an illegitimate means to inflate minority performance metrics. Here we see an email about a priority-enrollment scheme. No other school in Illinois has such a system of priority schemes. Instead of engaging with the hard work of DEI, IMSA may be violating the constitutional rights of children to create the perception that equity gaps have been narrowed. There is never a benign justification for a public employee to engage in racial profiling. Public employees may not consider the race of children in public schools when performing their job duties.

IMSA racially profiles children based on “professional judgment.”The SRELO program discussed in the email above is explained in more formal detail. Students of preferred demographics, including by race, are selected with priority. Open seats are available after those selections. Such priority and quota schemes have never been legal in districts that were not segregated. IMSA opened in 1986 as an integrated school.

Was your child racially profiled? Click the link to see one of IMSA's racial registers, which IMSA administrators utilize to engage in various schemes likely to be in flagrant violation of the constitutional rights of children.

IMSA uses unconstitutional eligibility criteriaInstead of doing the hard work of identifying and recruiting a diverse group of children through legitimate means, IMSA simply appears to take a shortcut through discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin. Two children in the same household can differ in their eligibility for IMSA programming based on race alone.

The State Board does not supervise IMSAThe Illinois State Board of Education has not been supervising IMSA to ensure that children are offered an appropriate education. This may compromise the integrity of reporting and assurances made by the State of Illinois in the receipt of IDEA Part B assistance.

IMSA's principal may have treated children differently on the basis of raceOn page two of this report, IMSA's former principal appears to discuss treating “CLED” students differently in the delivery of an educational program. “CLED” is partly a racial classification.