In the wake of a divisive presidential election, hundreds of students from about a dozen high schools in Oakland, California, cut class last November to voice their discontent with President-elect Donald Trump.
Rather than demand students return to school, faculty at Oakland USD supported the peaceful demonstration, where students could express their feelings, says David Yusem, Oakland’s restorative justice program coordinator.
It is part of a transformation in the district, which in recent years has sought to replace zero-tolerance discipline policies with alternatives designed to eliminate the racial divide in school discipline.
Oakland is not alone. Districts across the U.S. are coming to grips with having inherited exclusionary discipline practices that disproportionately target students of color and students with disabilities, and too often funnel them into the school-to-prison pipeline.
Nationwide, both groups are excessively suspended and expelled, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. Black students without disabilities are more than three times as likely as white students without disabilities to be suspended or expelled.
Although 12 percent of all students receive special education services, special ed students represent 20 percent of out-of-school suspensions and 23 percent of school-related arrests.
Experts agree discipline that removes students from the classroom causes significant harm and does little good. The answer, they say, is to replace zero-tolerance policies with alternatives that help every student thrive, regardless of challenges they face at home and in their communities.
Promising interventions
Such an alternative model is what Robert Runcie followed when he took over as superintendent of Broward County Public Schools in the 2011-12 school year, when there were 1,000 school-related arrests, the highest number in Florida. Most of them involved nonviolent misdemeanors.
Runcie went public with the data and gathered a diverse group of stakeholders to devise a districtwide policy that emphasizes alternatives to arrest.
In November 2013, nearly a dozen agencies—including the state attorney’s office, the Broward County sheriff and the Fort Lauderdale Branch of the NAACP—signed a Collaborative Agreement on School Discipline, which favors school-based interventions for nonviolent misdemeanors.
Broward County students involved in infractions, such as petty theft or possessing alcohol, can be assigned to the PROMISE program—Preventing Recidivism Through Opportunities, Mentoring, Interventions, Support & Education.
PROMISE students are removed from their home school for two to 10 days, sent to the district’s Pine Ridge Education Center and given tutoring, family counseling and other interventions.
The program is a community effort with participation from the city court and state Department of Juvenile Justice. Only about 12 percent of students who successfully completed the PROMISE program in the 2015-16 year reoffended, Runcie says.
The transformation also reduced arrests, behavior incidents and suspensions. In the 2014-15 school year, less than 500 students were arrested, and the county had one of the lowest arrest rates in the state, according to the juvenile justice department.
Implicit bias study needed
But disparities remain, according to a 2015 report by Maurice Woods, chief strategy and operations officer for Broward County schools. Black students were involved in behavioral incidents and suspended at twice the rate of white students.
To combat the discrepancy, the district—along with other civil rights and law enforcement groups—is conducting an implicit bias study to consider deep-seated attitudes and stereotypes that might influence a person’s behavior, sometimes subconsciously.
Researchers are surveying students, police, school faculty and other members of the community to reveal how prejudices contribute to the racial discipline disparity. Results, which are expected to be released in summer 2018, should help Runcie further dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline.
A need for empathetic preschool teachers
Preschool teachers’ treatment of students of different ethnicities reveals that expulsions and suspensions disproportionately deny access to boys and black students, according to the Yale Child Study Center.
Its recent report—”Do Early Educators’ Implicit Biases Regarding Sex and Race Relate to Behavior Expectations and Recommendations of Preschool Expulsions and Suspensions?”—notes:
Implicit biases may be reduced by increasing teachers’ empathy for children. Early educators should learn more about the struggles—and strengths—of the families they serve. And they should get more PD training about it.
Teachers could also benefit from increased training to understand how best to use mental health information and increase empathic understanding of children
See the full report about empathetic preschool teachers.
Support teams, planning centers
In October 2007, a 14-year-old student shot four people at SuccessTech High School in Cleveland before committing suicide. In reaction, Cleveland Metropolitan School District leaders installed metal detectors and hired additional security officers. Then they worked to improve school climates.
They recruited violence prevention expert David Osher, vice president at the American Institutes for Research, to help prevent another tragedy.
The institute, which studies behavioral and social science, recommended a comprehensive approach using social-emotional learning, exclusionary discipline, social services and school climate.
Social-emotional learning teaches students to manage their feelings, form positive relationships and solve problems. All the district’s elementary and middle schools have incorporated social-emotional learning activities that provide lessons on communication, regulating emotions and decision-making.
The district also created special planning centers to better support students who have been kicked out of class or suspended. Instructional aides help students improve behavior, develop self-esteem and set goals. Students can refer themselves to the planning center or be referred by a parent or staff member.
Community lends hand
More recently, the district partnered with the United Way of Greater Cleveland, Cleveland State University and Boys & Girls Clubs of Cleveland, among others, to provide social services for students at the neediest schools.
Each participating school has a site coordinator who organizes outside services that students might need: food, clothing, arts enrichment, sports programs, mentoring and tutoring.
The program started with 17 of the district’s lowest-performing schools, and was expanded about two years ago to 25 buildings, says the United Way of Greater Cleveland.
And finally, school climate is assessed via the American Institutes for Research’s conditions for learning survey, which examines safety, academic expectations, student support services and other areas to improve programs.
Negative behaviors decrease
Although discipline disparities remain in Cleveland, negative behavior incidents decreased per school by nearly 50 percent, and out-of-school suspensions have decreased by nearly 60 percent, according to Indiana University researchers.
Violent and disruptive behavior in the district declined significantly from 2008-09 to 2010-11, according to a report by the Civil Rights Project in Los Angeles. Infractions worthy of suspension per school declined from 233 to 132, including fights and serious bodily harm.
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