In 2005, AFC and Morrison & Foerster LLP filed a class action suit on behalf of a class of students who were illegally excluded from Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn’s Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood. Plaintiffs claimed that the school improperly placed them on shortened class schedules, placed them in an auditorium for a shortened day of non-credit bearing classes, or otherwise excluded them from school. The three-year-long class action lawsuit claimed that the school not only denied them a proper education but actually fostered an environment that encouraged students to fail or drop out.

In November 2008, the DOE agreed as part of a class settlement to offer an extensive program of free instruction, counseling, and vocational training to hundreds of current and former students of Boys and Girls High School. The services offered through the settlement included career and vocational training at New York’s established trade schools in a variety of practical job skills, including computers and information technology, office administration, paralegal training, plumbing, hairdressing and locksmithing, as well as literacy training, re-enrollment in high school, guidance and tutoring, and in some cases, public or private GED preparation. In addition, the DOE agreed to monitoring for a period of two years, to be extended by agreement or court order for one more year. On April 15, 2011, Judge Weinstein approved the parties’ agreement to extend certain of the monitoring and injunctive relief provisions of the settlement.