After initially declining to act, North Carolina’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has opened an investigation into whether Durham Public Schools (DPS) failed to educate disabled students detained at the Durham County Youth Home over the past year.
The Youth Home, a 36-bed juvenile detention facility on Broad Street, houses young people awaiting the outcome of their cases in the juvenile legal system.
The ACLU of North Carolina and Duke’s Children’s Law Clinic first filed a complaint with DPI in December, alleging that when the Youth Home entered a lockdown last February, education essentially stopped. During the lockdown, which was triggered by a reported threat of physical harm, residents were confined to their cells nearly around the clock, according to the complaint. The facility contains three classrooms where DPS teachers normally provide up to six hours of daily instruction, but during the lockdown, students were pulled out for instruction at most 30 minutes a day, the complaint alleged.
The complaint focused on students with disabilities, who make up a disproportionate share of youth in North Carolina’s juvenile detention system—and who, under federal law, must receive instruction tailored to their needs.
“These conditions are unsuitable for anyone, but students with disabilities are legally entitled to an individualized education plan, which wouldn’t be possible under the conditions that have been reported,” Michele Delgado, a staff attorney at the ACLU of North Carolina, told the INDY in an email.
DPI declined to investigate the complaint filed in December, saying it lacked sufficient evidence. But the ACLU and Children’s Law Clinic refiled last month with new documentation—namely, a report from Disability Rights NC, the state’s federally designated disability advocacy organization, based on site visits to the Youth Home and interviews with detained youth. The report found that instructional time at Durham’s Youth Home had plummeted from five to six hours a day in 2024 to no more than an hour in 2025, and that youth were being confined to their cells for 22 to 24 hours a day. Even after the lockdown lifted in early April 2025, the report found, conditions remained largely unchanged.
This time, DPI has agreed to investigate, announcing on March 12 that it would examine whether DPS met its special education obligations over a one-year period beginning in February 2025. The agency expects to issue a final report next month. If it finds the district to be out of compliance, DPI can order corrective measures.
In a statement to the INDY, a DPS spokesperson wrote that while the district provides up to six hours of daily instruction at the Youth Home, it doesn’t control how much classroom time residents actually receive.
“During lockdowns, [the Youth Home] administration has significantly limited our teachers’ access to students at the facility for safety reasons,” the spokesperson wrote. Even outside of lockdowns, DPS added, the amount of classroom time students receive is determined by Youth Home administrators, and staffing shortages at the facility have sometimes limited teachers’ access to students. As of January, the Youth Home had a 45 percent vacancy rate among its counselor positions.
Outside of the DPS statement, Durham County—which runs the Youth Home—did not separately comment on the ACLU’s latest complaint and DPI’s decision to investigate. The Youth Home previously pushed back on accounts of conditions inside the facility: in a January letter to Disability Rights NC, Youth Home assistant director Sheila Bowens-Bratts wrote that claims of routine 22-plus-hour confinement don’t accurately reflect how the facility operates. Bowens-Bratts wrote in the same letter that education at the facility is entirely DPS’s responsibility; the district staffs the classrooms, manages special education services, and maintains students’ educational records, she wrote, and the Youth Home has no authority over any of it.
Delgado told the INDY the ACLU hopes the investigation will improve conditions at the Youth Home and push DPI to better serve disabled students across the state’s juvenile detention system. The organization has also called for North Carolina to ban solitary confinement of young people entirely.
“There is no question about the short and long-term psychological and physical harm that happens to youth, whose brains will continue to develop well into their 20s, when they are subjected to isolation,” Delgado told the INDY.
DPI has given DPS until March 27 to submit a written response to the allegations.
After initially declining to act, North Carolina’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has opened an investigation into whether Durham Public Schools (DPS) failed to educate disabled students detained at the Durham County Youth Home over the past year.
The Youth Home, a 36-bed juvenile detention facility on Broad Street, houses young people awaiting the outcome of their cases in the juvenile legal system.
The ACLU of North Carolina and Duke’s Children’s Law Clinic first filed a complaint with DPI in December, alleging that when the Youth Home entered a lockdown last February, education essentially stopped. During the lockdown, which was triggered by a reported threat of physical harm, residents were confined to their cells nearly around the clock, according to the complaint. The facility contains three classrooms where DPS teachers normally provide up to six hours of daily instruction, but during the lockdown, students were pulled out for instruction at most 30 minutes a day, the complaint alleged.
The complaint focused on students with disabilities, who make up a disproportionate share of youth in North Carolina’s juvenile detention system—and who, under federal law, must receive instruction tailored to their needs.
“These conditions are unsuitable for anyone, but students with disabilities are legally entitled to an individualized education plan, which wouldn’t be possible under the conditions that have been reported,” Michele Delgado, a staff attorney at the ACLU of North Carolina, told the INDY in an email.
DPI declined to investigate the complaint filed in December, saying it lacked sufficient evidence. But the ACLU and Children’s Law Clinic refiled last month with new documentation—namely, a report from Disability Rights NC, the state’s federally designated disability advocacy organization, based on site visits to the Youth Home and interviews with detained youth. The report found that instructional time at Durham’s Youth Home had plummeted from five to six hours a day in 2024 to no more than an hour in 2025, and that youth were being confined to their cells for 22 to 24 hours a day. Even after the lockdown lifted in early April 2025, the report found, conditions remained largely unchanged.
This time, DPI has agreed to investigate, announcing on March 12 that it would examine whether DPS met its special education obligations over a one-year period beginning in February 2025. The agency expects to issue a final report next month. If it finds the district to be out of compliance, DPI can order corrective measures.
In a statement to the INDY, a DPS spokesperson wrote that while the district provides up to six hours of daily instruction at the Youth Home, it doesn’t control how much classroom time residents actually receive.
“During lockdowns, [the Youth Home] administration has significantly limited our teachers’ access to students at the facility for safety reasons,” the spokesperson wrote. Even outside of lockdowns, DPS added, staffing shortages at the Youth Home have sometimes limited teachers’ access to students. As of January, the Youth Home had a 45 percent vacancy rate among its counselor positions.
Outside of the DPS statement, Durham County—which runs the Youth Home—did not separately comment on the ACLU’s latest complaint and DPI’s decision to investigate. The Youth Home previously pushed back on accounts of conditions inside the facility: in a January letter to Disability Rights NC, Youth Home assistant director Sheila Bowens-Bratts wrote that claims of routine 22-plus-hour confinement don’t accurately reflect how the facility operates. Bowens-Bratts wrote in the same letter that education at the facility is entirely DPS’s responsibility; the district staffs the classrooms, manages special education services, and maintains students’ educational records, she wrote, and the Youth Home has no authority over any of it.
Delgado told the INDY the ACLU hopes the investigation will improve conditions at the Youth Home and push DPI to better serve disabled students across the state’s juvenile detention system. The organization has also called for North Carolina to ban solitary confinement of young people entirely.
“There is no question about the short and long-term psychological and physical harm that happens to youth, whose brains will continue to develop well into their 20s, when they are subjected to isolation,” Delgado told the INDY.
DPI has given DPS until March 27 to submit a written response to the allegations.
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