The Trump administration has ordered Seminole County Public Schools to shutter a student leadership class intended to help Latino students graduate high school, saying the district “may be discriminating based on race.”
SCPS informed parents and students Friday that the “Latinos in Action” courses, offered at 10 of the district’s high schools in partnership with a nationwide nonprofit, will cease. But the district will create a new program called “Leaders in Action,” which will seek to promote some of the same goals of service and leadership.
Broward County is also shutting down its Latinos in Action courses after receiving a similar directive from the Trump administration, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported last week. The Orange and Osceola school districts, both of which also participate in the program, told the Orlando Sentinel Monday they have received no such order.
The federal directive comes on the heels of a broader order from the Department of Education in the spring for school districts and universities to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs as well as race-based admissions programs. Subsequent communication from the DOE has singled out other specific programs for elimination.
The Latinos in Action program, based in Utah, had been in Seminole high schools for nine years.
In a letter to Seminole, Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights for the U.S. Department of Education, claims the Latinos in Action program requires 80% of the class to be Latino and allows the remaining 20% to be students from any other racial or ethnic background. He calls the practice “prohibited racial balancing.”
“The Latinos in Action program appears to exclude students based on race, to engage in unlawful racial balancing, and to segregate students based on race,” Trainor wrote to Seminole Superintendent Serita Beamon in a letter dated Sept. 24.
But according to the program’s website, Latinos in Action “offers an asset-based approach to bridging the graduation and opportunity gap for all students.” The website does not include the 80 percent figure and a spokesperson for Seminole schools said the program was open to all students.
Michael Ollendorff, a spokesperson for Orange County Public Schools, said the district had not received a letter like the one Seminole received from the U.S. Department of Education.
Osceola’s school district did not receive a letter either, district spokesperson Dana Schafer said Monday.
Orange has 30 middle and high schools with the program, and Osceola has 12.
Latinos in Action did not respond to a request for comment sent to the email address posted on its website.
Seminole’s “Leaders in Action” program will also be open to all students, Seminole Schools Spokesperson Katherine Crnkovich said. It will “still be a leadership course with specific emphasis on community service, building leadership, and college and career readiness skills.” The district is building the curriculum now, and the shift to the new program will happen starting after winter break.
Kristine Kraus, the chair of Seminole’s school board, wrote in a text that the district was surprised by the Trump administration letter.
“Our LIA students have an incredible bond both in and outside school,” she wrote. “We will create an even stronger program with teacher input and hopefully continue to grow the program.”
