John F. Kennedy High School students who endured the 2019 graduation scandal can continue their class-action lawsuit against charter operator New Beginnings Schools Foundation, a state appellate court ruled last month.
The ruling is a faint glimmer of hope in the years-long saga of what should have been the students’ college years.
Raqchel Young’s daughter Jessica lost a $60,000 college scholarship after she left Kennedy’s graduation empty-handed in 2019. Now, at age 25, she’s struggling to enroll in college.
“They have ruined not only my child’s life, they have ruined her dreams,” Young said. In recent weeks, she said, Jessica has been applying to schools yet again, but the scandal has left her tired and discouraged – about everything.
“To hear your child say ‘Mom, I don’t want to do it no more,’” Young said. “That’s like saying, ‘My child is giving up on life.’”
As the scandal unfolded in 2019, dozens of Kennedy seniors learned they had not, in fact, graduated. Some students lost scholarships and many more lost motivation. The fallout from the students’ suffering led to systemwide reform, including district audits of charter high school students’ transcripts.
But the courts are the only recourse for the Kennedy students, who are now in their early twenties.
After graduation in 2019, nearly half of Kennedy’s senior class learned they hadn’t actually been eligible for a diploma. Shortly thereafter, families sued New Beginnings, the charter organization that ran Kennedy at the time.
Now defunct, New Beginnings has appealed nearly every legal ruling over the last six years.
Earlier this month, the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal denied New Beginnings’ latest challenge, and affirmed the students’ class certification. The decision upheld Orleans Parish Civil District Court Judge Marissa Hutabarat’s July 2024 ruling, allowing the school’s 2019 and 2020 seniors to sue as a legal class.
That allows the students to seek damages together, because they endured similar kinds of harm.
“We’re thrilled,” attorney Suzette Bagners, who represents the families, said of the court’s decision. “(Rulings) never happen that quickly.”
Adults failed students
As concerns bubbled up in early 2019, Kennedy High School seniors were focused on graduation, unaware of the heartbreak that the summer ahead would bring.
It started as 17 grades, suspiciously changed in teachers’ online gradebooks, then mushroomed into a full-on scandal.
In March, a whistleblower claimed the school’s administrators illegally inflated grades from Fs to Ds to pass students. The allegation prompted multiple investigations that would later confirm “myriad deficiencies” and “a widespread lack of adherence” to state education law. There were serious, schoolwide problems. Administrators had failed to track courses and exams. Students lost credits because some courses were not properly supervised.
In May, amid the investigations, the charter group’s CEO Michelle Blouin-Williams resigned. Temporary administrators and contractors scrambled to review transcripts.
Despite the mess, New Beginnings proceeded with graduation. On an afternoon that May, Kennedy seniors strode into Xavier University’s auditorium in blue gowns. Family members carried in flowers. Later, students walked out with empty diploma tubes.
That was a shock, given the preceding week of senior activities, including a ring ceremony and praise for scholarship-earning students.
“They do a roll call – specifically for the graduates.They’re letting the kids know, ‘Congratulations, you’ve done it,’” Raqchel Young said, of her daughter Jessica’s senior week, when she was honored repeatedly. “They called her name three times.”
All too soon, and yet not soon enough, dozens of students learned they had not earned diplomas, others anxiously awaited confirmation that they had. School officials eventually told the Youngs that Jessica was missing two classes required to graduate, for U.S. History and physical science. She made up the classwork that summer, but couldn’t regain the scholarship she’d lost.
Dozens of families scrambled to reassure colleges. Other students were forced into summer school to finish their diplomas. Some students were short on credits because they’d been given two-credits for one-credit classes, others lacked required English classes. It took weeks for officials to short out what each student needed to complete high school. Information was scant.
Court finds juniors and seniors can sue together
On July 1 that year, less than two months after graduation, Bagneris took on the students’ case, filing a lawsuit against New Beginnings, the Orleans Parish School Board, Louisiana Department of Education and a contractor who had audited transcripts. Lawyers for the state and district successfully argued that their clients had no access to academic records at charter schools; the judge dismissed them from the case.
New Beginnings and its insurers are the only defendants remaining. But the courts disagreed about who the plaintiffs should be.
Bagneris initially fought to have all students enrolled in Kennedy that year included in the class-action lawsuit. Though it was the class of 2019 that faced the rapid, intense and very public fallout, Bagneris argued the school’s sloppy recordkeeping certainly harmed younger students too.
Hutabarat, from civil district court, went halfway, ruling that juniors and seniors from that year had enough in common to sue together, as a class. New Beginnings appealed, setting up last month’s hearing in front of the Fourth Circuit.
In a hearing held September 2, New Beginnings’ lawyer argued students and parents were the ones at fault, Bagneris said. That argument cut Young to the core, as she sat next to her daughter, listening to arguments.
“She was upset,” Young said. “She wanted to hear, she wanted to understand what they were saying.” The courtroom matched their moods, turning quiet and cold, Young said. “We looked at the other parents. We were all shaking our heads.”
How could the parents shoulder blame for hidden actions by New Beginnings officials, Young asked afterward. “If I knew my child was failing, would I have planned a graduation party?”
Ultimately, the court agreed with Bagneris, ruling that juniors and seniors can sue together — because adults were the common problem. “The common course of management is what placed them all in the same boat,” she said.
“I think it’s pretty clear cut,” Bagneris said. I’ve never had a case where every witness who testified testified this consistently,” she said. “This was a common course of conduct beyond the students’ control and that it was the responsibility of adults at the school.”
Charter organization shuts down, but case lives on for students
The New Beginnings Schools Foundation closed in 2020, in the wake of the scandal. But for families, that left a wake of confusion. For instance, it’s been hard to get academic records, Young said. Teachers have no direct way to confirm their employment.
Bagneris is fighting a shell charter group and its insurers. Students have already endured “grueling depositions,” Bagneris said. And while she was joyful about the quick appellate ruling, she expects New Beginnings to again appeal.
It would be more upstanding, Bagneris believes, to stop fighting and simply concede the harm caused. “I’m very sad that we’re still here,” Bagneris said. “Sometimes you’re wrong and you just have to take accountability. To look at these kids and say ‘no harm no foul,’ it’s just an indefensible position.”
New Beginnings appears to have prepared for a modest loss in court, according to its 2020 audit. “The Foundation has determined that it is probable that it has some liability,” auditors wrote. “The Foundation believes the plaintiff has a 75% chance of success on their claim.”
In the months after it stopped operating, the group reserved $426,494 “for any remaining expenses incurred, including settlement of litigation,” auditors wrote.
Settlement money for students could help pay for college or new careers. The Youngs have spent hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on Jessica’s transcripts and application fees, they said.
Young too believes that it’s gone on too long. “Just imagine your child asking you, ‘What’s going on?’ and you don’t have an answer.”
