South Bend School Corporation responds to Save Clay Incorporated
SOUTH BEND, Ind - Save Clay attorneys say closing Clay High School would violate the consent decree that helped to desegregate South Bend schools all the way back to the early 80s.
“We feel that there is a real need for legal intervention in this case.”, said Christian Matozzo, an attorney for Save Clay Inc.
The attorneys representing Save Clay Incorporated claim the planned closure would violate United States v. South Bend Community School Corp, a consent decree from the 1980s that required that the black students in each South Bend school to be within 15 percentage points of the overall percentage of black students in the entire district.
“So, our concern and why we are pursuing this, we think there is an unfair and disproportionate impact on a large group of black students that are currently attending Clay High School, 42 percent of the population there is black and by dispersing these students to other schools and the impact on them is disproportionate compared to the rest of the other students.”, said Peter Agostino, attorney for Save Clay Inc.
The Chief of Staff of South Bend schools, Rafi Nolan Abrahamian maintains the district does meet the criteria outlined in the consent decree and says they had no other choice but to shut down Clay High School.
“The district had to come to, given the years of declining enrollment and current utilization we face, we now have a building built for 1500 students that is only enrolling 600.", said Abrahamian.
The other major concern is the lack of a clear plan on where those students will go after Clay closes at the end of the 2024-25 school year.
The president of Save Clay Inc, Robert Smith says their fight is bigger than just one high school and protecting its students.
“This is about saving schools, saving South Bend Schools and I will tell Washington district , Riley district , Adams district , it may be Clay today but based on the drop in enrollment that will continue based on the facility study in the next 5 years , it will be Washington, schools in Washington district, schools in Riley district and schools in Adams district.”, said Smith.