The United States is far from providing each child with as much education as he can use. Our school system still primarily functions as a system of exclusion....[T]here is an enormous reservoir of talent among Negro and other poor youth. This society has to develop that talent. The unrealized capacities of many of our youth are an indictment of our society's lack of concern for justice and its proclivity for wasting human resources. As with so much else in this potentially great society, injustice and waste go together and endanger stability.
--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?
In many American schools the holiday celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday is used as an opportunity to teach children about his life and legacy. But in too many of those same schools, Black and other nonwhite and poor children’s extraordinary talents are still being wasted today. Nearly three-quarters of Black and Latino fourth and eighth grade public school students cannot read or compute at grade level. Long after legal segregation has ended Black students are still most likely to be excluded from the classroom: Black students made up only 18 percent of students in public schools in 2009-2010 but were 40 percent of students who received one or more out-of-school suspensions. A Black public school student is suspended every four seconds. When Black students are so often left behind and pushed out it should not surprise us that Black students are more than twice as likely to drop out of school as White students; each school day 763 Black high school students drop out.
So I applaud the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice for their recent action to address harmful school discipline policies that push so many thousands of the most vulnerable children out of school each year and into the juvenile justice and adult prison pipeline. If the education system is to do its part in dismantling the Cradle to Prison Pipeline and in replacing it with a cradle to college, career and success pipeline, we must end the current practice where children in the greatest need are suspended and expelled from school mostly for nonviolent offenses including tardiness and truancy. I have never understood why you put a child out of school for not coming to school rather than determining why they are absent.
I hope the new set of resources released by the Departments of Education and Justice will help schools create positive, safe environments while relying less on exclusionary discipline tactics. These resources, officially known as “guidance,” will help schools and districts meet their legal responsibility to protect students from discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin as required under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While the guidance offered is voluntary, school districts that fail to use effective strategies to address disparities in how discipline is applied could be subject to legal action from the Department of Education or Department of Justice. As we recognize the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and so many other important hard won victories in the Civil Rights Movement this year, we must remember those victories could be lost without meaningful enforcement of the laws advocates fought so hard to win half a century ago.
The Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) has been speaking out against school discipline policies that continue to stack the odds against poor children and children of color for all of our 40 years. In 1975 CDF released School Suspensions: Are They Helping Children? At the time CDF found the vast majority of suspensions were for non-dangerous, nonviolent offenses. While the largest numbers of suspended students were White, suspensions disproportionately hurt more children who were Black, poor, older and male. The great majority of suspensions served no demonstrated valid interests of children or schools. Instead they pushed children and their problems out into the streets, causing more problems for them, their parents and their communities. Too much of what we learned then remains true today. Several of CDF’s state offices have been mobilizing students, youths, parents, advocates, educators, community leaders and coalition partners to ensure students are not unfairly punished and pushed out of school into the prison pipeline. The new guidance is a valuable tool for them and all parents and communities.
While the guidance does not prohibit schools or districts from using any particular nondiscriminatory policy, it does call into question some policies that have historically excluded Black and Latino students disproportionately and are of questionable educational value—including “zero tolerance” discipline policies which require mandatory consequences for certain infractions, and policies that prevent students from returning to school after completion of a court sentence, which compound the often discriminatory effects of the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Perhaps the most absurd and outrageous are policies which allow or require suspension or expulsion for students who have been truant—punishing children for being absent by forcing them to be absent.
The new guidance recommendations are valuable to everyone concerned about success for all of the nation’s children—including students, parents, educators and community members. Information is available at this government website for almost every school and district in the country showing how many students were suspended or expelled, whether Black or Latino students or students with disabilities were suspended at higher rates than other students, and how individual schools and districts compare. Check your own school district now. Check too your own school or district’s code of conduct to see whether the discipline policy is focused on creating a positive school climate and preventing misbehavior, whether consequences are clear, appropriate and consistent, and whether there is a commitment to fairness in the application of discipline.
Then, follow up. The new guidance reiterates the longstanding right of parents to seek federal intervention on behalf of their children’s civil rights. If you are a parent and believe that your child has been discriminated against on the basis of his or her race, color, national origin, sex or disability, file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) through the online form here. Go to school board meetings and ask questions. Meet with your neighbors to learn about the experience of students in your community’s schools. Use the additional resources provided by the government’s school discipline website. Participate in webinars about the guidance and learn what other organizations are doing to empower educators with alternatives to exclusionary discipline. With all of this information—what Dr. King called “collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive”—you can make your case in the media, organize around school board elections, reach out to local and state elected officials, and come together with others to demand change.
For the Children’s Defense Fund’s first report in 1974, Children Out of School in America,we knocked on many thousands of doors in census tracts around the country. We found that if a child was not White, or was White but not middle class, did not speak English, was poor, needed special help with seeing, hearing, walking, reading, learning, adjusting, or growing up, was pregnant at age 15, was not smart enough, or was too smart, then in too many places school officials decided school was not the place for that child. In sum, out of school children share a common characteristic of differentness by virtue of race, income, physical, mental or emotional “handicap,” and age. They are, for the most part, out of school not by choice but because they have been excluded. It is as if many school officials have decided that certain groups of children are beyond their responsibility and are expendable. Not only do they exclude these children, they frequently do so arbitrarily, discriminatorily and with impunity. It’s way past time to end child exclusion from the indispensible lifeline of education. This time, like so many good laws and regulations, the true test of the value of this new guidance will be how well it is implemented. Let’s all join in to make sure everyone has a stake in helping our children strive and thrive in school. Their future and our nation’s future depend on it.
The goal of the Public Education system is to EDUCATE children a goal that can only be achieved in School. It is perplexing to me as well that a discipline response for students acting out and tardy (illustrating that they don’t want to be at school to begin with) is to suspend them and not only give them permission to miss school, but REQUIRE them to miss school.
ReplyDeleteFrom a psychological standpoint this is counterproductive, behaviorism tells us that rewarding a behavior will make it more frequent while punishing a behavior will reduce it. Utilizing that logic, the practice of suspending children who already do not want to be in school will only reinforce the behavior they did to get suspended. Students will return to school knowing exactly what to do to get more mandated days of laying around the house.
In my opinion zero tolerance policies have no place anywhere near children. Zero tolerance is a “one size fits all” response but really one size fits no one. Kids have things going on in their lives that cause them to act out and these external factors must be taken into consideration. A child who steals because he knows there will be no food over the weekend should not be punished, they should be supported. Behaviors often have a root and that root is different for each student, teachers and administrators should respond to each student as the situation and the root cause calls for.
I definitely agree Devon. I absolutely hate when students are taken out of school or placed in In School Suspension for minor bad behaviors. Many of these students would rather be there anyway to avoid learning and classwork. I make it my business to do whatever I can do before writing a student up or referring them to the principal who is going to place them in ISS or OSS. By placing students in ISS/OSS, we are automatically setting our children up for failure. ISS is very similar to prison. We are conditioning them for the life that may lie ahead. We are setting them up for those closed off prison walls. Ann Ferguson wrote a book entitled, "Bad Boys" which shows the research and psychology behind the effect of ISS/OSS. It also shows how much more likely African American and Latino boys are to end up in ISS/OSS and subsequently prison. It is an excellent book for educators if you have not already read it. It ties directly into CDF's Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign.
DeleteEven with major bad behaviors, we really must look for the root to the problem instead of covering the situation by placing students in ISS or OSS.
I teach ELA/SS and I team teach with a teacher who teaches Math /Sci. I try to create a fun learning envioronment that sparks interest but still has a level of seriousness for students. Last week, I noticed that a student from my second class was gone. The students informed me that he had been placed in ISS for falling asleep and being disobedient in his Math/Sci class. I was very disturbed becuase I felt that the behavior was minor. I also felt that if we could have looked at the root of the problem, we could have possibly solved the issue. He had never fallen asleep in my class, and I wondered could the root be the teacher? Could it have been the time of the day in which he was in the math class? Could there have been some underlying health issues or a situation at home that was causing him to lose sleep? Instead of asking those questions, he was immediately thrown into ISS causing him to miss not only Math/Sci, but ELA/SS as well. Now this young man has missed several days of instruction that are extremely hard to teach through the worksheets and sticky notes I sent to supplement the work he has missed. As educators, many of us have to wake up and learn some different techniques for solving various types of student behavior.
Devon and Myah,
DeleteI think you both make a valid point in investigating the issues of why such behaviors are occurring before disciplining them without reasoning. As an individual who was suspended countless times throughout middle and high school, I would say that you both are right. I think there is a lack of sympathy that educators have for students. I think they often forget, and in some cases may not care, that all their students do not leave school and go home to the picture perfect family. Some of these students leave school and walk through the door of abusive homes, molestation, starvation and numerous other hardships.
As an educator, it is your duty to serve your students to the best of your ability, to ensure that they are receiving the necessary tools to advance in life and be somewhat of that leader that they need. However, as of today, it seems as if the educators have fallen off. As you said Myah, you never know home situations and disciplining someone without getting to the root of the problem is absurd. Speaking from experience, it is very difficult to explain certain situations to “educators and authority figures” in a school setting when you are constantly rejected due to past mistakes that you have made. It’s tough to not fall asleep in class when you had to listen to physical and verbal arguments all night. It is difficult to make it to school three days in a row when your family has just been evicted and you have no place to go. If this is so, educators are continuing to tell students that they need to leave their personal problems at the front door and not to school because it serves as a distraction but what it… just what if school is the only place that students can get sleep or the only time they have a roof over their head? These are the problems that our youth, not only African Americans and Latino’s, are experiencing on a daily basis and because many fail to get to the root of the problem they fail to realized what is going on.
We as a whole must focus more on educating our children opposed to disciplining them for the little things. We must help them as opposed to talking about them. We must empower them and not destroy them.
I agree Devon, Myah, and Victoria our students need to be educated and not suspended because educators feel lack of respect during their lessons. Educators need to understand the "Why" to get to the root of the "How" are they going to help these students. It only creates a non-ending cycle of failure when students are not learning.
DeleteDevon,
DeleteI liked your comparison of punishment to a "one size fits all." School systems do often give students the same punishments across the board even when those children have totally different reasons for what is considered misbehaving. I know Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools often gives the same punishments to children no matter the circumstances behind not only because they call themselves being fair, but because it is too time consuming to actually consider each individual child. I think our education systems are becoming very lazy in the sense that they do not want to take the time to ensure that each child is getting what he or she personally needs. For example, a child could be acting out in class because they do not understand and learn in a different way than their counterparts. However, the teacher will often only see this as a disruption and send the child out and write referrals that eventually can lead to out of school suspensions. Discipline in itself is not the problem. It is the way that children are being disciplined which in the end makes the child worse off than when they started. It is not beneficial to make a child stay home and waste their days doing nothing without some type of intervention to correct the behavior. When the child returns to school they will not only be behind, but will repeat the same behaviors that they were suspended for until someone teaches them differently. If students do not get an adequate education, they are already at a disadvantage for many things in later life including health, jobs, quality of life, etc. It may not seem like it to some, but teachers really have a lot of power in how children grow and develop. I just hope that people don't continue to allow discipline to muffle the futures of our children.
Many of the things discussed in this article are things we talk about in session "Developmental Needs" at National Training, which I taught last summer. It's crazy that we impose these zero tolerance policies, a one size fits all, on our children, but we don't even do that for adults. When an adult commits a crime and is tried in court, there is some discussion that takes place before the sentence is handed down. There are exceptions to this rule, but for the most part, discussion takes place. Shouldn't we be just as understanding, if not more, with our children? In most cases, they haven't stolen a car or been involved in a murder. Most times they've just fallen asleep in the class or talked back, which takes me to a point that Myah made. I think that educators have more of a responsibility in this. We should not allow a child to go to ISS for simple infractions. We should be able to handle most things on our own because as Myah stated, we can't effectively reteach the material through the handouts and sticky notes and the children only get farther and farther behind.
DeleteThis coversation is is so true. I have been having conversations like this a lot recently. Devon is right that removing a child from school who doesn't want to be there is not a punishment. Also removing a child from puts the burden of discipline on the parents who are very likely at work during the time when the child is to be home, therefore also,not correcting the behavior. Working with children on a daily basis, I often hear parents say "I don't know why they are behaving this way. I them give everything they want" I think this is major issue when it comes discipline starting at home. Children are not being taught the value of working for what they want, which makes them feel like everything should be given to them. When these children don't get what they want, they act out with no accountability for their actions and no remorse. If children are not taught that they will have to work to sustain themselves as adults, then they will become dependant on the system and conitue with the mindset that what they want and need should be given to them.
DeleteWhen I began reading this column, it instantly brought me back to high school. During my senior year of high school, I served as an office assistant for one period. I had to run errands all around the school, and I remember one day I had to take something to the In School Suspension (ISS) room. I walked in, and there was about 25 kids in the room, with only 3 being white. My school was a predominantly white high school, and I knew several white classmates of mine whose behavior was less than stellar, yet were never sent to ISS. I distinctly remember being angered as I left the room, which is why I'm glad to hear that the Departments of Education and Justice are taking steps to address harmful disciplinary policies in schools. School needs to be a place that students look forward to going to, not a place to simply spend 7-8 hours a day. A lot of children that get suspended or kicked out of class have many needs at home, yet school systems often do not take that into account with their punishment. This could be do to lack of resources or lack of caring, but most likely a bit of both. I wonder how many lives would be changed if instead of a child being suspended for being late was simply asked why. Sometimes, all it takes is one person showing interest in the life of a child to change that child's life.
ReplyDeleteMatt I definitely agree with you. In the area where I go to school, there are so many truancy cases. Not only do children dread going to school, but they can't because of school policies that aim to kick children out of school rather than work with them and build them as people AND students.
DeleteIf one were to peek into ISS at my school, one would see the majority of the students are African-American males. In our school setting, the males encounter most of the school's disciplinary action. At the beginning of the year when we analyzed our school data from the previous year, 60-70% of the males did not pass the end of the year test. Often times students roaming the hallway are male, students standing on the outside of the door because they have been kicked out are male, etc. As a school, we recognized this issue with academics, which ultimately leads to behavior issues, but nothing proactive was done. Much of the school discipline system is reactive.
ReplyDeleteSimilar to Maya, I try my hardest to avoid sending students to ISS because work that is sent to ISS cannot supplement the work in class. I have even gone as far as to retrieve students from ISS for my class period. Many of them enjoy being in ISS. It is obvious, at my school at least, the process isn't working. For example, there are students who have had Lunch Detention nearly every day since the beginning of the year. When I stepped back and looked at that, I found I needed to find something else to prevent the behavior from happening, or find other logical consequences for their actions. Many times that is the issue, the consequence is not logical for the action.
The fact that so many AA males are placed in ISS can easily be correlated to the White teacher - Black Male ratio in school settings. There have been many studies indicating how White teachers struggle with educating Black boys. Thus, an infraction on behavior sends them right into the principals offices. I think about my last summer as an SLI and our White SLI (who was great by the way) struggle so much with one Black boy in her class. He would go to another SLI with not problem. He wasn't much of a trouble maker, they just did not mesh.
ReplyDeleteThat's why I believe we need more Black male teachers in our classrooms.
I agree with Evetty the number of ISS for black males is extremely sad. As a black male coming through the educational system I haven't lost count of the number of times I was suspended from school yet alone placed in ISS. The reason we need more black males in the school community, especially the classroom is because we black boys need to be able to see themselves in the community displaying positive leadership. The first thing that teachers have to realize that they biologically we are different and the negative images they have stereotyped us for years has to be taken from one's mind. These will allow teachers to stop having this conflicts with black male students. But most importantly you have to show us that you care.
DeleteI agree most often children do not see an African American male sin education until you get to high school. As AA males we need to be vigilant to our youth early to set the tone for their future. I agree with Antonio, it is important that you show that you care, as a youth i vividly remembered see whether a teacher truly cared for me or was their to do a job.
DeleteWhile reading this column, all i could think about were two particular students in my class. These two little guys have been showing me that there are multiple aspects to teaching that I was previously unaware. I feel as though many forces come into play in regards to disciplining and guiding children. This was evident within the parent/teacher conferences that I was involved in this year. I was able to meet with parents and the disciplinarian at my school to state the issues and concerns prevalent with my students. This meeting was a time for all of us to come together and create solutions for the misbehavior taking place within the classroom. Parents were able to provide important insight to their children while the disciplinarian was able to provide support and techniques to combat the issues in the class. This was of utmost important to me because I've never agreed with the idea of suspending children; to suspend a four/five year old is just ludicrous. So these meeting provided an oppurtunity for all parties to join together and create a specific behavior modification plan for two of my most challenging children.
ReplyDeletePiggyBacking off of Evetty's points and correlating with other comments on this thread, I agree that there is much to be done in our public schools. Three years ago, in response to similar problems at my elementary school, I worked with two other male teachers to start up a Male Mentoring club called the Gentleman's Association. Since the inception it has grown tremendously and served as an inlet for positive males from the community to partner with our school and serve as mentors. Our goal when we began was to offset the overrepresentation of boys, especially black and brown boys, when it came to discipline referrals. Our pilot group that 1st year were the so-called "trouble makers," boys who had earned a reputation for their almost daily visits to "the Office." After what was an arduous year for us, mentors, we had made some gains, but they weren't as dramatic as we had hoped. What the year allowed us to learn however were the many root causes of the behaviors and attitudes of the boys in the club. Often it seemed that the shortage of males in the school building, mirrored the absence of males within their own personal lives. One crowning achievement from our meetings and discussions after school must have been the fact that we created a family of young men who shared similar challenges and narratives. Today those same "trouble makers" are in Middle School. Routinely, they visit our weekly meetings to mentor new members, boys only 2 or 3 years younger than themselves. Their impact is greater than we could have ever envisioned. My dream is to see successes like these become the norm.
ReplyDeleteBravo on the work you and your colleagues do for these young boys. I teach in a middle school where discipline is pretty non-existent. The dean attempts to talk to the children to help curb their behavior, but when he becomes overwhelmed he will swear at the students and/or send them home. The dean, by the way, is the ONLY male in the entire building. It seems like your group experienced so much success because there were multiple strong male figures at play. What advice do you have for a woman teacher who wants to help young men make better decisions?
DeleteOne man can make a huge DIFFERENCE, but you really need a coalition of males to give that balance that every school ought to have . I am one of only two black males in my building, so I understand the challenges, from a racial perspective. AS far as gender gaps go, what we are dealing with is a national crisis and I applaud all the women who wake up everyday to make it happen for our young boys.
DeleteMy advice is to team up with other women in the school to brainstorm strategies that enforce discipline and activities that give young men a chance to express themselves (Ex. an Open Mic, a cypha, a talent show or... a debate). Also partnering with positive adults (especially males) in the community who can come in to spend time with the boys.
“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” Albert Einstein.
ReplyDeleteWhat are our current school systems teaching our children? My daughter attends first grade in the same school and neighborhood I graduated from in Chicago. Just to give you all some context on this city, Chicago has some of the most segregated communities that you can find in a big city and my old neighborhood is no exception. This predominantly African American low income community is my home, and I wanted my daughter to experience the joys I experienced as a child. Well, this year my child's school informed parents that if your child is tardy 5 times, they will send him or her home on the 6th tardy. I was annoyed, to say the least, to hear about this new rule. So, you could imagine the anger I felt when my daughter received a warning letter to inform her that she had one more time to be tardy or else she would be sent home. We have to remember that not all children who are tardy or absent want to be tardy or absent. Sometimes there are situations beyond a child's control which may prevent him or her from attending. My daughter loves school with all of her being, and it is unfair and unjust to send her home because mommy’s car decided not to run today. When I think about the middle school students I teach whom also live and attend school in that same exact neighborhood, I am reminded of the stories I’m told of being the “man” or “woman” of the house. Our children have so many responsibilities that they aren’t able to make it to school and when they finally do they have to deal with the consequences of being absent. I believe these policies undermine the purpose of education. If our goal is to mold young minds and prepare them to be the next leaders, engineers, doctors, and professors, then why are we excluding them from the only place that can set them on this path? I plan to make it my business to change this policy at my child’s school. It is time for these policies to end.
Definitely some valid points made. I agree with the fact that some student sanctions could be avoided or substituted for different consequences. The loss of instructional time is crucial for the struggling student. Time spent outside of the cassroom, not engaged in any educational activities is harmful to our youth. Teachers are charged with being a mediator, role model, and source of conflict resolution and should be able to solves issues involving student behavior through parental and administrative support. As teachers I believe we influence our children more than anybody else outside of immediate family so we have to keep them in school and come up with alternatives for minor offenses resulting in multiple suspensions.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first read this article, I immediately thought about my student Timothy. Timothy is a student from a lower income family, who I find to be witty, honest, direct, and a bit rebellious. While I personally admire all these traits, they are a constant source of trouble for the eighth grader. He attends a very strict, almost militant charter school. Every day that I am in the schools with the leadership program I work for, Timothy is often excused from my class by his teacher. He’s so used to it that he clears the room in a matter of seconds, before I can even access what has happened, or whether he really deserved to be kicked out of class. Usually it’s for some comment or remark that was out of turn or not in accordance with the school’s strict culture, but not something that would offend my sensibilities. My issue with this way of doing things is that it doesn’t really change the behavior. I’ve seen Timothy do his best to participate in my class, when prior he wouldn’t even come. I know there is growth and progress there, and the teacher, in accordance with school culture, renders the progress pointless every time she kicks him out. From Timothy’s point of view, what is the use of trying so hard, if even one slip up will put him right back where he was? Do we never celebrate his effort? Do we never give him some slack for his participation in discussions, activities, and journaling? If not, then we are simply molding Timothy into the very personality that he is being punished for. The very same personality we are trying to avoid: delinquent, rude, disruptive, and distant. It drives me nuts because I worked so hard to build a rapport with the student to get him to trust me enough to come. It drives me nuts because in his journal entry, he specifically wrote about wanting to do better, but having a problem with focusing. He made it clear what his problem is, and is essentially asking for help. But people who don’t truly believe in him would rather write it off as excuses and exclude him. Exclusion does not reform people. It contains them. And children know when they are just being “contained.”
ReplyDeleteIt is absolutely interesting to me how fifty years later with the passing of generations, Dr. King’s words are always still so relevant. This column begins with a quote from Dr. King stating that the United States has done a terrible job at giving each child the means of obtaining a quality education as a result of its school system being one of exclusion. He goes on to say that Black and poor children of other races hold an abundance of talent, but because of “our society’s lack of concern for justice” and tendency to waste our human resources as we do with so much else, this greatness goes unrealized. He concludes with this: “…injustice and waste go together and endanger stability”. This to me is a powerful statement. It reminds me of many of the first graders I work with. Many times I feel that because of the unjust conditions and situations many of them have been exposed to, any reservoir of talent they possess has little opportunity to be realized especially if they continue to be enveloped in this environment of injustice. In architecture, a solid foundation and a sound structure are what create good stability. My prayer for these children is that even in an environment of less than desirable conditions, their foundation of family and close friends and acquaintances is solid in giving them all that they need to be upstanding, contending citizens, and that the educators that God has placed into their lives are able to be a strong support to that foundation to create an elegant structure filled with a realized capacity of talent that is used to make a positive difference in the lives of other people moving to create stability in our community, country and world. Amen.
ReplyDeleteI believe that our children need teachers who can better connect with them. socially and racially. A black child tends to be more receptive to black mentors/teachers. that goes for young boys. If a young black male sees his black male teacher investing in him and showing support, his behavior changes especially if there is not a male parent in the household. he then develops a spirit of hope and sees that he too can have a future someday. I also believe that every since integration our black children haven't been able to get the most adequate education possible. genetically we as African people retain information differently. we are a kinetic learning people. we need examples, call and response as well as hands on teaching. the school system doesn't allow that. you shout out an answer and you are reprimanded,. we get bored and need to get up and stretch and we are reprimanded. out students are being stimulated mentally and for reacting to boredom they are reprimanded. I love the Freedom School model because its teaching is so grassroots and it works. Schools should take heed...
ReplyDeleteIt is alarming that each of you have shared personal stories about children you know and how unjust policies have placed black and brown children in a problematic situation at school, at home, and in life. I am proud to say that California has stepped up and is leading the movement in changing demographically targeted policies.
ReplyDeleteRecently: research has found that under this highly subjective category, students are sent out of school for anything from failing to turn in homework, not paying attention, refusing to follow directions to take off a coat or hat, or swearing in class. They can also be potentially expelled from the district for such offenses.
On April 11, California legislators heard testimony about AB 2242, which would replace the reference to “willful defiance” in California law with more specific language from elsewhere in the Education Code that gives better direction to teachers and administrators. AB 2242 also allows school officials to subject students who engage in minor infractions to in-school supervised suspension.
This change in policies is a first and not the end. We still have work to do but we recognize we are harming our students more then punishing them for issues that can be address with increased minimum wage, access to quality healthcare, equitable education, qualified and prepared teachers, just to name a few.
Folks, if you have not reached out to your legislator, I encoruage you to do so and inform them on the critical issues taking place in your community.
I find this article very interesting. I never understood the idea of suspension used as a punishment. I know when I got suspended in high school it was more so a reward. I got to stay home for a few days. That’s not punishment at all. When the principal said I would be suspended, it was actually happy more so depressed about missing school. As some of my colleagues mentioned, schools main focus is to educate. So the fact that many schools are requiring student to be out of school due to suspension is going against that focus. I know many schools now offer in school suspension, where students are in school while they are suspended. To me, it’s a good thing, then again is that working? Many student find in school suspension “the place to be” because they are not in the classroom learning but given busy work to do all day long. I like what Myah said, in school suspension being like prison. Separating students from the main population as a form of punishment is what in school suspension is. What can be done?
ReplyDeleteI agree with the points that have been made around student discipline. In my opinion, student discipline is a direct result of school climate. The climate of a school is a major factor in the overall safety and behavior of a school. Although metal detectors, increased security and police presence may seem like appropriate tools to ensure the appropriate behavior of our students, it sends a message that will remain with many of our students for the rest of their lives. This message indirectly affirms that our children cannot behave appropriately without the presence of police, metal detectors etc. in our schools. Schools should not be the beginning of the pipeline to prison. Rather, schools should be a place where students feel safe and learning is welcomed and anticipated; a place where behavior expectations are understood and followed consistently.
ReplyDeleteCoincidentally, my very first college research paper was on black children in special education. And shortly after I experienced this first hand at my nephew's school, he was the only black student in the class and was a calm and well behaved kid, all of a sudden he was getting suspended as a kindergardener for minor issues at school! Next thing you know his teacher recommended that he get tested for a learning disability. After this he stopped enjoying school because he could sense the negative attitudes that the staff and teacher treated him with. Come to find out later he was being bullied by the older students and was acting up as a result. Parents and educators must be aware of the disciplinary culture at the school and teacher's unwareness of historical patterns that disenfranchise black children. Education is the key!
ReplyDelete