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Mother sues Michigan school district for forcing son to take extra English lessons

Posted at 10:32 PM, Oct 11, 2017
and last updated 2017-10-12 07:01:07-04

A Michigan woman is filing a civil lawsuit against the Chippewa Valley School District for pulling her son from core education classes in order to take English lessons.

Kim Molnar said for eight years, administrators thought her son needed more English lessons even though English is his first language.

Molnar said it all started after she filled out a home survey form, which created nothing but problems for her son.

"He does not know anything but English," she said. "He's been here since he's an infant. It's been a struggle since day one."

"I fought for eight years at this point for them not to pull him." 

Molnar said her son was born in Guatemala and came to the United States as a baby after he was adopted. 

"He's an American citizen for gosh sakes, when he came here, he did the whole thing when he was a baby," Molnar said.

In 2009, he was enrolled in Cherokee Elementary, where Molnar says he was being pulled from core education classes and placed in second language classes.

"My son shouldn't even show that he was in this program, it shouldn't be on his transcripts," she said. "My son is struggling and having issues, not just in class because of this, but emotionally, trying to fit in because you guys keep telling him he's different based on his race."

When Molnar enrolled her son in elementary school, she needed to fill out a home language survey. She marked her son's first language as English, and says he only spoke English. 

"He was refused to be taken out of the program," she said.

Eight years later, she received the first HLS form that was sent in, but she says it's forged.

Detroit-based WXYZ reached out to the Chippewa Schol District for comment.

Diane Blaine, director of school and community relations, said the school district could not comment at this time because they haven't received the lawsuit yet. 

The school district should receive the lawsuit sometime this week or early next week.