Referrals of Students to Police Are Still a Problem at L.A. Schools | Capital & Main
Referrals of Students to Police Are Still a Problem at L.A. Schools
Restorative justice remains a new way of thinking for Los Angeles’ 1,300 public schools — even as administrators continue to call the cops on troublesome students.
LIKE MANY SCHOOL DISTRICTS in the post-Columbine era of the late 1990s, Los Angeles’ responded to misbehavior with zero-tolerance toughness. Tens of thousands of students were suspended – with African-Americans and children with disabilities taking a disproportionate share of those punishments. In 2011 the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) found that, for disciplinary and other reasons, black students had been denied equal access to education. In response, the district embarked on a campaign to slash suspensions and, five years ago, replaced harsh discipline with restorative justice policies intended to transform schools into inclusive communities where kids and adults talk out problems before they escalate into serious incidents.
Restorative justice remains a new way of thinking for the more than 60,000 teachers and administrators who staff some 1,300 schools across the sprawling district. It also represents a critical challenge — how the Los Angeles Unified School District meets it will determine how well the district addresses the needs of a changing and mostly low-income student body.
Steep drops in student suspensions have been almost matched by increases in referrals to law enforcement.
“It’s a cultural change and that doesn’t happen overnight,” said newly elected school board member Jackie Goldberg. She noted that school administrators might find themselves stuck – unable to suspend, but without a fully implemented restorative justice program that students and staff understand.
That may be why school administrators have quietly taken a decidedly non-restorative approach to keeping order: They’ve called the cops. Indeed, at some schools with formerly high suspension rates, referrals to law enforcement rose nearly in inverse proportion to the drop in suspensions between 2011-12 and 2015-16, the last year for which data is publicly available. (The OCR defines referrals to law enforcement as “an action by which a student is reported to any law enforcement agency or official” for incidents that occur at school or school-related events, regardless of whether police take official action.)
