Decriminalizing School Discipline
I believe the purpose of public schools is to educate not exclude children and to help identify and meet child needs, not make children serve adult convenience, self interest, and systems. So huge reforms are required in school discipline policies and practices across our nation as school pushout has worsened in past decades with the criminalization of children at younger and younger ages aided and abetted by school expulsion and suspension policies which funnel children into the prison pipeline often crippling them for life.
Nationally, the number of secondary school students suspended or expelled during a school year increased about 40 percent from 1 in 13 in 1972-73 to 1 in 9 in 2009-10 -- although we know suspensions are more harmful than helpful to children. Schools with higher suspension and expulsion rates have worse school climates, lower student academic achievement, and are often less safe. Racially discriminatory school discipline policies contribute to the Cradle to Prison Pipeline crisis with a Black boy born in 2001 having a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison in his lifetime and a Latino boy a 1 in 6 chance of the same fate.
The March 2014 report from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights included troubling findings on how unfair and excessive school discipline policies can be beginning as early as preschool. But there is some encouraging news. Some school districts are significantly reforming their discipline policies and, more fundamentally, how they view and treat children by moving away from harsh and exclusionary policies toward more positive and restorative approaches that improve discipline outcomes and keep children in school. The Children's Defense Fund (CDF) applauds such school district actions and hopes that districts across the country will follow.
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest in the country, has the largest school police force in the nation closely followed by New York. Of approximately 9,000 arrests and tickets issued to LAUSD children in the 2011-12 school year, 93 percent involved Black and Latino students. The Labor/Community Strategy Center reported the district had the highest "Student Criminalization Rate" -- the number of arrests and tickets or citations per 100 students -- among all the largest districts in the country. In May 2013, after years of struggle, community organizing, and advocacy by many organizations that make up Dignity in Schools-Los Angeles and the Brothers, Sons, Selves Coalition -- including the Children's Defense Fund-California -- the school board adopted sweeping policy reforms in the School Climate Bill of Rights. It eliminated suspensions for the subjective catch-all category known as "willful defiance" and directed all district schools to implement PBIS (Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports) and restorative justice programs to ensure students access to schools that reflect caring, inclusive, safe, and healthy learning environments.
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest in the country, has the largest school police force in the nation closely followed by New York. Of approximately 9,000 arrests and tickets issued to LAUSD children in the 2011-12 school year, 93 percent involved Black and Latino students. The Labor/Community Strategy Center reported the district had the highest "Student Criminalization Rate" -- the number of arrests and tickets or citations per 100 students -- among all the largest districts in the country. In May 2013, after years of struggle, community organizing, and advocacy by many organizations that make up Dignity in Schools-Los Angeles and the Brothers, Sons, Selves Coalition -- including the Children's Defense Fund-California -- the school board adopted sweeping policy reforms in the School Climate Bill of Rights. It eliminated suspensions for the subjective catch-all category known as "willful defiance" and directed all district schools to implement PBIS (Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports) and restorative justice programs to ensure students access to schools that reflect caring, inclusive, safe, and healthy learning environments.
The Los Angeles Unified School District announced additional positive changes recently thanks to efforts led by Public Counsel and the Labor/Community Strategy Center. The district will stop issuing citations for most campus fights and many other minor infractions. School police will follow a step-by-step formula that should result in students being referred to off-site counseling, mental health services, or other school- and community-based solutions for offenses that until now sent them to court or probation. Juvenile Court Judge Donna Groman said about the new protocol: Decriminalizing School Discipline | Marian Wright Edelman:
