For months, a Demopolis mother of three has been fighting for change in her small-town school district, advocating for better resources for students with disabilities. But last fall, Nikki Carter received a call that derailed her efforts. Via aledlab:
Jul. 27, 2023, 9:14 a.m.Nikki Carter and her son, Simeon, get ready for his graduation from Demopolis High School on May 19, 2023, in Demopolis, Alabama. Carter was barred from school property for months after a verbal confrontation with a school employee. She believes the school was retaliating for her work as a parent advocate. Rebecca Griesbach/AL.
“Being a support that people need, it comes at a price,” she said. “But this right here has been the highest price.” Experts say it’s common for schools to retaliate against parents they see as troublemakers, those who complain or try to make change. But banning parents from campus is an especially harsh measure, one officials in Demopolis have deployed in recent years.
Of the 10 recipients, including some charged with crimes, Carter was the only one to be banned from all district properties. “It is no one thing; it is the totality of Nikki,” said Elizabeth Ogden, a Demopolis parent who has also been vocal about issues in the local schools. “It is a Black woman who has dared to advocate for her child and for other children. And because she’s effective at it.”In schools, trespass orders typically are used in custody battles or against people with domestic violence charges.
In her decades of helping other parents handle retaliation cases, she’s seen schools refuse to provide services to students with disabilities, or sometimes treat students poorly or deny them certain opportunities after a disagreement with a parent.“From what I can tell, that’s just not common,” she said. “That is harsh.”
Carter recalled venting to another parent and saying the sponsor “was about to get her ass whipped” if she kept pestering her. She told AL.com she didn’t know the sponsor was a school employee, and she thought the comment was made out of earshot. State officials said they leave trespass decisions up to local districts. In Demopolis, school officials talk to witnesses and law enforcement before filing a no trespass notice, according to Alex Braswell, the school board attorney. He said Carter’s notices included all property because the alleged threat involved an employee at another school. He declined to respond to allegations of retaliation, citing privacy reasons.
In other words, it’s easy to ban someone from a property. And it’s hard for the person to regain that access without risking arrest and a court appearance. She said she was tired of seeing so many young people wrapped up in the court system, and suspected many had disabilities that were going unnoticed. So she spent months studying up on federal and state laws, and teaching herself what terms like “IEP” and “504″ meant. In May and August of 2022, she held workshops with big-name lawyers to help teach parents their rights.
“If folks aren’t aware of their rights, and the schools aren’t advertising them, you have this sort of combo there that can be really harmful for the students because nobody is really fully understanding all that the school district should be doing and is receiving funding to do,” said Mike Tafelski, an attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
She had students who were non-verbal and struggled with basic motor skills, like holding their pencils. But Cleveland told AL.com that school officials discouraged educators from getting kindergartners tested or placed on learning plans. Harrison felt like she had no option but to put her son in a boarding school, she said. That is, until she met Carter, who started sitting in on staff meetings and helped connect her with legal support.Nikki Carter and her son, Simeon, at his graduation from Demopolis High School on May 19, 2023, in Demopolis, Alabama. Carter was allowed to attend the ceremony after being barred from school property for most of the school year. The no trespass order is still in effect. Rebecca Griesbach/AL.
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