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NAACP Shares Stories of Individuals Who Were Failed by the CA Public School System


Darryl Lester“Larry P'”, the pseudonym given to the Mr. Darryl Lester, the main plaintiff in the landmark 1970’s case which was filed against the state of California on behalf of African American students, is just one of many people who suffered great injustice in our California public school system. Wrongly labeled “Educable Mentally Retarded” at the time, Mr. Lester may actually have dyslexia and was robbed of his right to read.

Mr. Lester’s story can be heard in this podcast released by KQED Public Radio’s The California Report Magazine on October. 18.

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The California Report Magazine states that Decoding Dyslexia CA has found a qualified professional to help Mr. Lester achieve his life-long goal of learning to read and spell.  DDCA has located and vetted a highly-trained structured literacy tutor near Mr. Lester’s current home of Tacoma, WA. and is trying to find funders to pay for one year of tutoring services.

In addition, the International Dyslexia Association of  NorCal and Decoding Dyslexia CA (DDCA) have teamed up to create a Larry P. Student Scholarship Fund with the purpose of awarding scholarships to African American students in public school in Northern CA who are struggling with reading and spelling skills.  The hope is that the Larry P. Student Scholarship Fund will help future African American scholarship recipients receive access to evidence-based Structured Literacy interventions that will improve their reading and spelling outcomes. If you’d like to donate to the scholarship fund, please click here.

Mr. Lester will also share how the lawsuit and his miseducation affected his life during a panel discussion at the California Association of School Psychologists Convention taking place in Long Beach on October 24-26.

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