At Castlemont High School in Oakland, student plaintiff Lee Simmons was assigned “work experience” periods for two out of six periods in the day. That’s a 33 percent reduction in his instructional learning time during his senior year, according to the suit. In South Central Los Angeles, student Jessy Cruz of a school also called Fremont High School will graduate without enough credits to enter a four-year college. Yet he was assigned to two "service" periods at school and a period of "home" time, the suit also says.

The suit argues that academic instructional time the plaintiffs have been getting is “far below the norm” in public schools across the state, even though large numbers of these students are struggling to catch up with affluent peers.

Even if they are able to graduate, Eidmann said, they are deprived of courses affluent students are getting in their schools that prepare them for entry to college.

All the schools named in the suit — including one elementary school — are affected by neighborhood violence that lead to “lockdowns,” resulting in hours, even days of lost instructional time, lawyers for the students also argue. Some schools have few or no counselors or psychologists on staff to help thousands of students cope with disturbances that spark fear and absenteeism. 

“For these students, consigned to a series of schools that perpetually fail to deliver education, hope fades and potential is crushed,” the suit argues. “The loss of educational opportunity does not occur in any dramatic, headline-making way,” but rather “over time, from the loss of learning time itself.”

Students receive “fewer minutes of learning per hour, fewer hours per week, and fewer weeks per year. As a result of this massive deprivation, an indefensibly high percentage of students at these schools fall far behind, give up, and drop out.”

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson — who is named as a defendant — and State Board of Education President Michael Kirst issued a statement Thursday saying that they hadn’t had time to review specific claims in the suit. But the statement also said: “California’s education system is in the midst of a historic effort to shift authority over decision making to local school districts, empowering them to determine how best to meet the needs of the students they serve.”

The statement encouraged plaintiffs’ lawyers to work with local school districts.

Troy Flint, director of communications for the Oakland Unified School District, said, “We are not opposed to the lawsuit” filed by Public Counsel and the ACLU. Flint said the district is aware “there are serious problems” at Fremont and Castlemont high schools. He said that the district has been trying to initiate reforms at each school to ensure students are put into more appropriate classes.

The suit argues that practices to patch together classes for students at these underfunded and troubled schools are violating students’ right to educational opportunities, regardless of “wealth or race” under the California State Constitution.