Rochester school board members got some good news last night about suspensions. According to a recent report, short- and long-term suspensions have dropped significantly, from 11,000 in the 2007 to 2008 school year to 5,500 in 2012-2013. The problem is that board members don’t believe the data.Â
District officials concede that the way disciplinary problems are reported varies from school to school. And they said that even data from as recently as two years ago isn’t thorough.
Board members are trying to determine if the approach teachers and administrators are using to discipline is effective, or if it just removes students from classrooms and reduces instruction time. Board members Cynthia Elliott, Van White, and Mary Adams say that they are also concerned that the disciplinary actions are more severe for African American and Latino students than they are for other students.Â
Elliott questioned whether teachers, who are largely white and female, fully understand and have been trained on how to respond to some behaviors that may seem inappropriate, but are culturally relevant. Many city students respond with aggression or defensiveness, she said, because they need to protect themselves in the neighborhoods where they live.Â
And she questioned, as many school security leaders across the country have, whether policies rooted in zero-tolerance ideology are actually contributing to problem behavior.Â
White said that parents need to be better informed about their legal rights when it comes to school discipline. Parents have the right to appeal a suspension, but most don’t because they don’t know they can.Â
And board member Adams said that she had requested more information from the Rochester Police Department about its contact with city students. For example, how many times were students restrained, pepper sprayed, or detained in the back seat of a cop car, or arrested? she asked.Â
What school officials do know is that Monroe, Wilson Commencement Academy, East, School of the Arts, Charlotte, and 17 had the most suspensions last year. Monroe had the most with nearly 700 suspensions.
Most suspensions are short-term, in-school suspensions for incidents involving minor altercations, disruptive behavior, and assaults that caused physical injury. Bringing weapons to school, possessing and selling drugs were other leading causes for suspensions.
Suspensions occurred in nearly every grade last year, but the majority was clustered in grades 7 through 9.
While Superintendent Bolgen Vargas has renewed emphasis on data collection, school officials says that it’s not as easy as it might seem. A fight, for example, could be reported a few different ways.
And there is concern about under-reporting all instances because school officials are fearful of having so many suspensions that the district becomes known for student violence and disruptive behaviors
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The board will meet again sometime in November to continue its review of the policy.Â
This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 1, 2013.
While responses with “aggression and defensiveness” might unfortunately be relevant to the culture of some students in their neighborhoods, it is not appropriate for schools, and when it becomes disruptive to the learning of other students it is unacceptable. Ms. Elliot seems to justify behavior that is harming the ability of all students to learn. Inside a school building it is a pretty objective to measure, independent of racial/gender/cultural factors, when behavior of some students creates a roadblock to the learning of the majority of students by disrupting learning and instruction. If Ms. Elliot is not aware of some of the ridiculous behavior that is displayed by some students on a regular basis that merits suspension, she might want to spend a little more time in school buildings to earn some of the $20K+ she’s earning yearly as a School Board representative.
Ms. Elliot has unfortunately displayed some behavior in the past toward other Board members and/or members of the public that would merit suspension or expulsion if she was a student. Why would anyone be surprised that she’s defending students’ misbehavior?
Of course they don’t trust the data – and they shouldn’t. A few years ago I was working for one of the schools mentioned in this post & I was reporting suspension to grant funders. About mid-year I discovered that the data I was reporting (compiled directly from Administrators and the In School Suspension teacher) was wildly different than the data the Principal was reporting to RCSD. As a result, from that point forward people were instructed not to share real data with me. The next year I was transferred out of that school & the Principal was promoted. SO MUCH is buried at the school level, that the data that makes it way to Central Office is extremely inaccurate. Oh and in my professional career I have never met anyone more full of hot air than Cynthia Elliott.
Several years ago, a close friend of mine was teaching in one of the schools mentioned. He would routinely tell me stories of students walking into the classroom and immediately doing something violent or outlandish (punching another student, kicking a desk across the room, etc.) solely with the desire to be sent to in-school suspension so they did not have to sit through the class. This would happen almost daily. Of course, when faced with the decision of having your entire class disrupted for the entire period or send the student to ISS, the decision seems clear from the teacher’s point of view. However, when the student is being “rewarded” by not having to sit in the classroom, something seems broken.