Former student at Providence's Birch school featured tonight in documentary
PROVIDENCE - A documentary film about three young Americans living with intellectual disabilities premieres tonight on the WORLD Channel and features a Providence resident.
Naomie Monplaisir, who is one of the subjects of the film, "Intelligent Lives," attended high school at the Harold A. Birch Vocational School, which was involved in a 2013 settlement agreement with the Department of Justice over violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The school operated “sheltered workshops” for students with disabilities that the Department of Justice said segregated those students from their peers and funneled them to another program, Training Thru Placement, where they were used for cheap labor.
After the settlement was reached, Providence ended sheltered workshops at the Birch School and relocated the classrooms within the program’s host school, Mount Pleasant High School. The city this year asked to be dismissed a year early from the terms of the settlement based on the district’s compliance.
During her time at the school, Monplaisir was asked to perform menial tasks, such as assembling jewelry, said Dan Habib, the film’s director.
But the documentary focuses on Monplaisir’s life after high school when she transitioned into paid, integrated employment at the Empire Beauty School in Warwick, Habib said.
“The whole point of the film is to change the paradigm of how we see intelligence,” he said. “Someone like Naomie may never perform well on a standardized test, but the hard work and positive energy she brings into a workplace can’t be measured.”
The film premieres tonight on the WORLD Channel at 8 p.m.
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