As Student Citations Drop in Los Angeles, Questions About ‘Ghost Suspensions’ Rise
Amidst mounting criticism of its disciplinary practices in recent years, Los Angeles Unified School District began shifting away from citations and suspensions and toward practices that emphasize keeping students in the classroom in 2012.
Reaction to Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) discipline overhaul has been mixed. As the L.A. Times reported last week, teachers feel unprepared to manage classrooms populated by students who, in the past, would have been removed for offenses such as “willful defiance.” And while public officials applaud dropping citation numbers, community activists say the data don’t entirely reveal how effective the district is at keeping students in class.
Rob McGowan, associate organizing director for CADRE LA, a community advocacy group in South Los Angeles, said the district’s former citation policy took a toll on students.
McGowan once knew quite a few youth who feared going to school. The class bully hadn’t deterred them, nor had the pop quiz in algebra.
The students skipped school rather than turn up to campus late because they feared police would cite them for truancy.
“This especially happens with poor folks,” said McGowan. “Truancy tickets can be a couple hundred dollars. Then, they double or triple. It’s almost like a poor tax.”
Because low-income students face transportation barriers, they’re more likely to be tardy, McGowan said. School police used to cite latecomers to class as truant for wandering outdoors during school hours.
To avoid costly truancy fines, poor students in this predicament began ditching class completely. The trend raised concerns as a mountain of research has shown that missing As Student Citations Drop in Los Angeles, Questions About ‘Ghost Suspensions’ Rise - The Chronicle of Social Change: