PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – A federal judge has lifted a decree that requires Providence to change the way it treated students with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. agreed to lift the decree Thursday a year before the July 2020 deadline, something federal authorities called highly unusual.
The decree dated to June 2013 and was put in place after the Justice Department determined that the Birch School in the city isolated students with developmental disabilities from regular high school students in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Both the city and the federal government moved to dismiss the order against Providence after the school department demonstrated that it had disbanded the Birch School and integrated those students into Mount Pleasant High School.
