Suspended: Inequality in School Discipline
Part I of a News10 investigation that examines who is being discplined at school. Part II on Tuesday evening will explore the long-term consequences of these policies. News10/KXTV
Sacramento teenager Dwayne Powe Jr. got a suspension in eighth grade. He didn't get into a fight. He wasn't caught with drugs. He committed no crime.
"I actually was asking for a pencil," Powe said.
He was technically suspended for "willful defiance."
Powe said his class began an exercise and he asked to borrow a pencil from another student. That's when his teacher told Powe he was being disruptive and made him leave class. Powe tried explaining he had only asked for a pencil, but that only dug his hole deeper, he said.
"All I was doing was asking for a pencil, so I got suspended for two days for willful defiance," Powe explained. "Because I was just trying to ask for a pencil."
Nearly 200,000 California students who were suspended for willful defiance last year can relate to Powe's story.
What constitutes as willful defiance is somewhat vague, but it generally allows teachers to remove students from the classroom if their behavior is thought to be disruptive or defiant. It's the most common reason California students were suspended -- and students of color were overwhelmingly targeted.
But, there was a growing consensus that keeping kids out of the classroom for non-violent behavioral issues had done more harm than good, and students of color were paying the heaviest cost for this policy. The growing consensus includes state and local education officials.
"The research speaks very, very clearly that students of color don't engage in more egregious violations than any other student," California Department of Education Coordinated Student Support Division Director Gordon Jackson said. "So, there's something else at play -- and it could very well be those differences that I think are often represented in the fact that many of our teachers don't look like a lot of our students."
The California Department of Education (CDE) began collecting all sorts of data in 2011, including willful defiance suspensions. Jackson said the data confirmed what many suspected all along.
"Collecting the data just confirmed that there is a certain level of disproportionality, particularly in those areas that are subjective –- willful defiance, disturbance -– that there's a high preponderance of African-American and Latino or students of color that are suspended," Jackson explained.
However, policies built around a model called "restorative justice" or "restorative practices" looked promising according to early results, Jackson said. Rather than focus on punishment alone, restorative justice is about building student-teacher relationships and addressing at-risk behavior early in a student's development. It's also about realizing that learning doesn't happen in a vacuum, and issues such as health, family life and self-esteem also effect classroom success. Jackson said he learned these lessons first-hand as a teacher.
"I could not say at the end of the day that I was so overburdened because I tried to build a relationship with these students," Jackson said. "I think I would be more burdened if I was dealing with students who just wanted to throw things at me and didn't want to follow any direction, and I'm writing referrals and that's my day."
Although there were nearly 200,000 willful defiance suspensions last year in California, that's actually a sign of progress. Just two years ago that number was close to 350,000.
The CDE wanted local school districts to continue moving away from suspensions and towards restorative practices, but they can't force change. California is a local control state; which meant policy is implemented at the district level. State education officials can't impose their will, they can only nudge, prod and offer guidance.
"There are places in California, which I shall not name as you suggest, where I don't know if they're waiting for a written invitation, but they have not yet decided this is a hill that we have to climb," Jackson said.
What hasn't changed, however, is the disparity in the system, particularly for African-American students. They've accounted for roughly 20 percent of willful defiance suspensions each year since 2011, despite accounting for about 6 percent of student enrollment. White students also account for 20 percent of willful defiance suspensions, but they make up 25 percent of the student population. Those numbers were often even more skewed at the district level.
"Some of my white friends, they think it's funny to a sense," Powe said. "But they don't realize what it's like just being automatically accused without even doing anything."
Though it may be tough for white students to put themselves in those shoes for a day, organizations like the Black Parallel School Board know the uphill battle students of color can face in school and have been working to end zero-tolerance disciplinary policies for years. They describe their primary mission as supporting the educational growth and achievement of black students.
"What's taking place in schools is basically an expression or reflection of what takes place in society," said Carl Pinkston, a community activist and member of the Black Parallel School Board. "And basically teachers, administrators and the entire educational system is reflective of that."
John Hunter, a sophomore at Kennedy High School, said he got caught in that system. Looking at Hunter, one may think he'd struggle to graze a basketball rim with his longest finger, let alone dunk the ball. But that's exactly what Hunter said landed him in a room for several periods with nothing to do while serving time for an in-school suspension.
"Oh yeah, I got hops," Hunter said.
Hunter said his freshman PE class was playing basketball and he dunked the ball, thinking nothing of it. But what came next surprised him.
"I mean, it's basketball, why would you not dunk the ball?" Hunter said. "So I dunked the ball and she just, she just wrote me up."
Hunter said he couldn't even do homework, just sit on a stool and stare at the wall.
The Sacramento Unified School District had low suspension numbers for a district of its size, but district administrators said they're still trying to reduce those numbers.
"I think sometimes suspensions become a catch-all because a teacher or site administrator just doesn't know what else to do," Sacramento City Unified School District Chief Communications Officer Gabe Ross said. "So, I think the work that we're doing in our schools and what we're continuing to work on is how do we provide those resources and tools so that there are other options so that we can keep kids in school. We know the surest way to ensure a kid doesn't get a good education is if they're not in class."
Last year, students within the district were suspended more than 800 times for willful defiance. African-American students accounted for more than half of those suspensions, despite making up only 17 percent of the student body. Ross acknowledges there's more work ahead.
"While the disproportionality still exists with boys of color, you see that our suspension counts in total are way down from a year ago," Ross said. "That's a great start. It doesn't address all our issues, but it's a step in the right direction."
Disproportionate suspension numbers were the norm, not the exception when it comes to local school districts. Data from the CDE showed district after district with diverse student populations target students of color far more than white students.
Lodi Unified School District had 17,000 fewer students than Sacramento City Unified, yet they handed out more than 2,300 willful defiance suspensions last year. The district had more than three times as many white students as black students, yet black students were suspended 564 times last year, compared to only 425 suspensions for white students.
Natomas Unified School District was another diverse school district, and the disparity was even more apparent. There were about the same number of white and black students, but only one of those groups seemed to get suspended for willful defiance. Last year, black students were suspended 119 times, but only nine white students were suspended.
"There is a disparity that exists," Natomas School District Director of Communications Jim Sanders said. "I don't think the data gives a simple answer to that. What we can tell you is that our system of discipline is colorblind. We can also tell you that our core belief is that where disparity exists it can and must be eliminated."
Sanders said he's optimistic those numbers will drop quickly as the district makes an effort to move towards restorative justice and away from suspensions. Many of the district's policies that focus on at-risk kids were in their infancy, but the early results looked good. If the first semester numbers hold true, Sanders said the district will see a 50 percent decrease in African-American suspensions this year.
