Atlanta Public Schools Admit Teacher Made ‘a Poor Choice’ to Segregate Elementary School Classrooms By Race and Will Pay $500K to Settle with Black Parent Who Filed Lawsuit
A Black woman who sued Atlanta Public Schools after she learned her daughter’s elementary school separated students by race has reached a $500,000 settlement with the district that was approved by its board on Monday, AJC.com reported.
In 2020, Kila Posey, a career school teacher and administrator, was running an after-school program called The Club at several Atlanta elementary schools, including Mary Lin Elementary, where her daughter was about to start second grade. Her husband, Jason Posey, was the school psychologist at Mary Lin, which had a policy of allowing staff to request homeroom teachers each year, her lawsuit, obtained by Atlanta Black Star says.
When the Poseys requested a certain homeroom teacher, the school’s principal, Sharyn Briscoe, who is also Black, informed them that she had designated other homerooms as the “Black classes” for the second graders, and allegedly tried to persuade Kila Posey to place their daughter in one of them.
Posey told CNN that Briscoe warned her that if her child remained in the original class, she would not “have anyone that looks like her.”
At the time, Mary Lin, a perennially top-performing school in the APS system, had 634 students, about 10 percent of whom were Black. The second grade for the 2020-2021 school year was slated to have six homeroom classes, and Briscoe reportedly split up the 12 Black second graders registered among just two homeroom classes, along with students of other backgrounds, in an effort to “build community” among those Black students.
Alarmed, Posey began talking with and complaining about the apparent racial segregation of students to other school administrators and district officials.
“As a Black parent, what I’m hearing is my kid doesn’t have the options of six teachers that may work with her learning style,” Posey told NBC in 2021. “I only get two [teachers]. How is that right? A white parent can get all six.”
Posey claims school officials told her that they shared her concerns, and said they would investigate, but then did not notify her that they had taken any corrective action by spring of 2021, the complaint says.
Meanwhile, the then-principal of Springdale Park Elementary, Terry Harness, terminated his school’s contract with The Club, which Posey saw as retaliation for her complaints. Harness was a close friend and confidant of Briscoe, the lawsuit alleges.
And in July of 2021, Principal Briscoe began contracting with another after-school service vendor for the following school year, diverting away some of The Club’s business, which Posey contended was evidence of “ongoing retaliation.”
Posey went public with her discrimination complaints, which stirred up mixed responses from other parents at the school, many of whom were sympathetic to Briscoe.
In 2021, a group of Black parents sent a letter to the APS Superintendent that said they found Briscoe a “smart, dedicated, present and cheerful leader” and that they supported the school’s policy of “inclusive classes wherein students have a diversity of abilities, strengths, backgrounds and interests.” It further said they were “comforted to find that our children are rarely the only children of color in a classroom.”
Sabrina, a Black parent at Mary Lin who declined to provide her last name for fear of harassment from critics, told CNN that being the only Black person in a setting often comes with a level of pressure and responsibility that isn’t easy to accept, she said.
“I’m not appalled, I’m not offended by the idea that gender matters, temperament matters, needs matter and that race matters,” she said. “I would say I’m glad my child won’t be the lonely only.”
In August of 2021, Atlanta Public Schools released a statement that said in part, “[As] an organization, we are committed to identifying and removing barriers to success for all our students, including our students of color. Using race as a method for assigning students to classrooms is unacceptable. APS does not support or condone this behavior. When the district learned of this allegation, we addressed it and the matter was closed.”
The district did not disclose how it had responded to the alleged class segregation.
By April of 2022, with her discrimination and retaliation complaints unaddressed to her satisfaction, Posey contacted the NAACP about her concerns, and NAACP representatives conducted a walkthrough of the school.
Less than two hours after they left, Briscoe terminated the school’s contract with The Club, the lawsuit says. Posey promptly filed a complaint with the school district’s Office of Internal Compliance (OIC).
She received a letter from an assistant superintendent a few days later saying the contract she had signed with the district for after-school services provided for termination without cause. In August, the OIC sent a letter further alleging that Briscoe had terminated The Club’s contract due to concerns over declining enrollment, an issue Posey claims had never before been raised.
Posey submitted open records requests seeking records and email correspondence to APS related to her complaints and The Club’s contract terminations, but the district was not adequately responsive, her lawsuit claims.
In November of 2022, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) began an investigation into her complaints of alleged racial segregation and subsequent retaliation against Posey, her family and her business by APS. The retaliation claims included Jason Posey’s assignment by APS to work remotely after Posey informed the district that Briscoe was using race to assign students to classes.
The DOE’s civil rights investigation remains open, according to the OCR website.
In January of 2023, Posey filed her lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on behalf of herself and The Club, claiming that Atlanta Public Schools had violated Title VI the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other federal law by discriminating on the basis of race when it retaliated against her for complaining about racial segregation at the school.
Among the examples of retaliation listed in the complaint were the district’s cancellation of her after-school program’s contracts, the district’s failure to discipline Briscoe for her racial segregation of students, and its failure to develop anti-retaliation policies.
Posey also claimed the district had violated the First Amendment by retaliating against her protected speech when she complained, and the Georgia Open Records Act by refusing to supply the records she requested.
The complaint sought a jury trial to determine compensatory and punitive damages for her lost business and pain and suffering; an order directing Briscoe to renew The Club’s contract with Mary Lin Elementary; and orders declaring Atlanta Publics Schools and Briscoe to be in violation of the Civil Rights Act and other federal and state laws.
In its answer in April 2024, Atlanta Public Schools denied that any racial segregation occurred at Mary Lin, or that any of its employees unlawfully retaliated against Posey or The Club.
In her answer, Briscoe denied that she had any unlawful retaliatory motive for terminating Posey’s contract and asserted that “all decisions regarding placement of students were made in good faith and were based on legitimate, non-discriminatory and valid educational reasons and reasonable factors other than race.”
In March 2024, U.S. District Court Judge Michael L. Brown dismissed some of Posey’s and The Club’s claims against APS and Briscoe, keeping alive her claim of retaliatory discrimination by the district against The Club for terminating her contract, and the open records-related claims. He ruled that she could not seek damages for pain and suffering but could seek “appropriate damages or non-monetary relief.”
After another attempt to dismiss the case by both defendants and then mediation failed, the parties plunged back into discovery and pre-trial activities last fall, filing a flurry of motions and briefs.
In mid-December, they decided to settle, and the court case was ended on Dec. 17.
The $500,000 settlement approved by the Atlanta Board of Education on May 5 says in part:
“In January 2023, the Club After School and Kila Posey filed a lawsuit against Atlanta Public Schools in the United (States) District Court for the Northern District of Georgia alleging various violations of federal law. In order to settle all claims in the lawsuit, which are disputed, in the interest of avoiding litigation and other associated expenses, and without admitting any liability, the parties have negotiated a full and final settlement of this matter.”
Posey told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) that she disagreed with that characterization of the settlement.
“School districts are tasked with being good stewards of taxpayer dollars and no school district is paying a half million dollars — regardless of their statement — that is not an admission of (liability).”
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for APS sent this emailed statement regarding the settlement to Atlanta Black Star:
“Several years ago, there was a conflict between [Kila] Posey and Mary Lin Elementary School in which the principal made a poor choice regarding assigning students to classrooms. As soon as APS leadership learned of the matter, it intervened to remedy the matter. While the principal is no longer at Mary Lin and the school has new leadership, APS takes responsibility for the actions of its staff.”
“Meanwhile, [Kila] Posey’s company, the Club After School, has and continues to provide after-school services at APS schools,” the statement continued. “APS has always treated Ms. Posey’s business fairly and on the same terms it does any other vendor – no better and no worse. While APS does not generally comment on litigation matters, we made the business decision to resolve this matter so that APS could best direct its resources towards children, rather than litigation. The district’s priority is, and will always be, ensuring students receive a safe, high-quality education—one of the many reasons families entrust APS with their children’s academic journey.”
Attorneys for Posey did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Atlanta Black Star.
“We’re happy to just kind of move on with our life,” Posey, now 46, told the AJC. “This has consumed us for quite some time.”