Minneapolis School District Suspensions

[amigocabal]

Minneapolis Public Schools will review suspensions selectively.

Moving forward, every suspension of a black or brown student will be reviewed by the superintendent’s leadership team. The school district aims to more deeply understand the circumstances of suspensions with the goal of providing greater supports to the school, student or family in need. This team could choose to bring in additional resources for the student, family and school.

It never occurred to them to at least seek the advise of legal counsel such as a county attorney? This does not even rise to the level of "separate but equal".

[Covenant]

I found this baffling so I went to get some data about what is actually happening over there. Here's the most relevant article, below. The TL:DR version is that young children (even Kindergarden) are being suspended in alarming numbers and children of color, native american children and disabled children are receiving dramatically, dramatically more suspensions than white kids. In order to break the cycle they have put a lot of brakes in place to slow down the rate of suspensions and add more oversight to this explosion of students being kicked out of schools.

This is from the Minneapolis Star Tribune: http://www.startribune.com/local/minnea ... 99171.html My dressed link wasn't working.

Minneapolis public school officials are making dramatic changes to their discipline practices by requiring the superintendent’s office to review all suspensions of students of color.

The change comes amid intensifying scrutiny of the way Minneapolis public schools treat minority students and in the wake of new data showing black students are 10 times more likely to be sent home than white students.

Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson said she wants to “disrupt that in any way that I can.”

“The only way I can think of doing that is to take those suspensions back to the individuals and try and probe and ask questions,” Johnson said Friday.

The new policy will be implemented as the district approves a settlement with the U.S. Department of Education, which was investigating the district over its inconsistent suspension treatment for black students.

Far too often school ­officials are suspending students of color for a behavior that doesn’t lead to suspensions for white students, Johnson said.

Beginning Monday, every proposed suspension of black, Hispanic or American Indian students that does not involve violent behavior will first be reviewed by Johnson or someone on her leadership team.

The school district is also reducing its police presence at its schools after finding inconsistencies and questions in how schools used police in disciplinary ­matters.

Dramatic growth

This is the district’s latest attempt to reduce suspensions of minority students. Earlier this year, Johnson placed a moratorium on suspensions of pre-kindergarteners, kindergartners and first-graders.

The superintendent banned the suspensions after a Star Tribune report showed dramatic growth in the number of the youngest students being sent home.

The moratorium has helped reduce overall suspensions by 50 percent, Johnson said. She remains committed to completely eliminating the racial suspension gap by 2018.

“Changing the trajectory for our students of color is a moral and ethical imperative, and our actions must be drastically different to achieve our goal of closing the achievement gap by 2020,” Johnson said.

Some community leaders who have closely watched the suspension disparities welcomed the new policy, but called for stricter changes.

“In the long term, that is not the solution,” said Marika Pfefferkorn, with the Minnesota Minority Education Partnership. “The way to stop disproportionately is to do a moratorium.”

The organization has been working with the district to help create its new expectations for student behavioral standards. Pfefferkorn said she wants to see the district mandate training in cultural competency for staff and support a moratorium for all elementary school ­suspensions.

Some teachers and principals have previously been critical of across-the-board bans, saying that they force teachers to contend with disruptive students who are jeopardizing the learning experience for all students. Oftentimes, they say, the children have untreated mental health or behavioral issues that can make learning difficult for other students.

Johnson said she continues to work with principals and other school leaders to come up with solutions short of sending kids home. Principals have already been asking Johnson if she would be “grilling” them when reviewing proposed suspensions.

“No, it’s a conversation,” Johnson said.

As part of the broader settlement, the district will be required for the next three years to report its progress on reducing suspensions for students of color to the Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education. The district will present that agreement at Monday’s school board meeting.

The district also has agreed to increase staff, ­create a more robust data system, clearly define its ­suspension policy and increase community and student engagement. The district estimates making those changes will cost about $5 million.

District officials said they have already implemented most of the new federal requirements outlined in the agreement.

School resource officers

One of those requirements is for the district to thoroughly re-evaluate its school resource officer system.

There are currently 16 school resource officers, all of whom are Minneapolis police officers, spread out across the district’s high schools, middle schools and some elementary schools. It also contracts with nine part-time police officers.

The district plans to reduce the school resource officers to seven within four years and completely eliminate the part-time officer positions next school year.

Jason Matlock, the district’s director of Emergency Management Safety and Security, said school safety has been handled in a “very inconsistent matter.” Critics have called it part of a school-to-prison pipeline that they are trying to break.

The district debated eliminating all officers but said that would put too much of a safety burden on school staff. The district also considered creating its own police department but said it was too costly and went against the more nurturing culture that the district is trying to establish.

“This will create a safer and more welcoming environment,” Matlock said.

[amigocabal]

I found this baffling so I went to get some data about what is actually happening over there. Here's the most relevant article, below. The TL:DR version is that young children (even Kindergarden) are being suspended in alarming numbers and children of color, native american children and disabled children are receiving dramatically, dramatically more suspensions than white kids. In order to break the cycle they have put a lot of brakes in place to slow down the rate of suspensions and add more oversight to this explosion of students being kicked out of schools.

This is from the Minneapolis Star Tribune: http://www.startribune.com/local/minnea ... 99171.html My dressed link wasn't working.

Minneapolis public school officials are making dramatic changes to their discipline practices by requiring the superintendent’s office to review all suspensions of students of color.

The change comes amid intensifying scrutiny of the way Minneapolis public schools treat minority students and in the wake of new data showing black students are 10 times more likely to be sent home than white students.

Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson said she wants to “disrupt that in any way that I can.”

“The only way I can think of doing that is to take those suspensions back to the individuals and try and probe and ask questions,” Johnson said Friday.

The new policy will be implemented as the district approves a settlement with the U.S. Department of Education, which was investigating the district over its inconsistent suspension treatment for black students.

Far too often school ­officials are suspending students of color for a behavior that doesn’t lead to suspensions for white students, Johnson said.

Beginning Monday, every proposed suspension of black, Hispanic or American Indian students that does not involve violent behavior will first be reviewed by Johnson or someone on her leadership team.

The school district is also reducing its police presence at its schools after finding inconsistencies and questions in how schools used police in disciplinary ­matters.

Dramatic growth

This is the district’s latest attempt to reduce suspensions of minority students. Earlier this year, Johnson placed a moratorium on suspensions of pre-kindergarteners, kindergartners and first-graders.

The superintendent banned the suspensions after a Star Tribune report showed dramatic growth in the number of the youngest students being sent home.

The moratorium has helped reduce overall suspensions by 50 percent, Johnson said. She remains committed to completely eliminating the racial suspension gap by 2018.

“Changing the trajectory for our students of color is a moral and ethical imperative, and our actions must be drastically different to achieve our goal of closing the achievement gap by 2020,” Johnson said.

Some community leaders who have closely watched the suspension disparities welcomed the new policy, but called for stricter changes.

“In the long term, that is not the solution,” said Marika Pfefferkorn, with the Minnesota Minority Education Partnership. “The way to stop disproportionately is to do a moratorium.”

The organization has been working with the district to help create its new expectations for student behavioral standards. Pfefferkorn said she wants to see the district mandate training in cultural competency for staff and support a moratorium for all elementary school ­suspensions.

Some teachers and principals have previously been critical of across-the-board bans, saying that they force teachers to contend with disruptive students who are jeopardizing the learning experience for all students. Oftentimes, they say, the children have untreated mental health or behavioral issues that can make learning difficult for other students.

Johnson said she continues to work with principals and other school leaders to come up with solutions short of sending kids home. Principals have already been asking Johnson if she would be “grilling” them when reviewing proposed suspensions.

“No, it’s a conversation,” Johnson said.

As part of the broader settlement, the district will be required for the next three years to report its progress on reducing suspensions for students of color to the Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education. The district will present that agreement at Monday’s school board meeting.

The district also has agreed to increase staff, ­create a more robust data system, clearly define its ­suspension policy and increase community and student engagement. The district estimates making those changes will cost about $5 million.

District officials said they have already implemented most of the new federal requirements outlined in the agreement.

School resource officers

One of those requirements is for the district to thoroughly re-evaluate its school resource officer system.

There are currently 16 school resource officers, all of whom are Minneapolis police officers, spread out across the district’s high schools, middle schools and some elementary schools. It also contracts with nine part-time police officers.

The district plans to reduce the school resource officers to seven within four years and completely eliminate the part-time officer positions next school year.

Jason Matlock, the district’s director of Emergency Management Safety and Security, said school safety has been handled in a “very inconsistent matter.” Critics have called it part of a school-to-prison pipeline that they are trying to break.

The district debated eliminating all officers but said that would put too much of a safety burden on school staff. The district also considered creating its own police department but said it was too costly and went against the more nurturing culture that the district is trying to establish.

“This will create a safer and more welcoming environment,” Matlock said.

A lawyer chimed in.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/comm ... 45011.html

I applaud Minneapolis schools Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson’s desire to end all racial discrimination resulting in black, Hispanic or American Indian students being suspended from Minneapolis public schools (“Schools need OK to suspend,” Nov. . Unfortunately, the means that she has chosen — providing additional review by her office of any suspension of black, Hispanic or American Indian students for nonviolent behavior — is likely unconstitutional.

Here’s why:  When a government entity, such as a school district, develops a policy that discriminates between racial groups, a court will strike down that policy as unconstitutional unless it is justified by a compelling government interest, is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest and is the least restrictive means of achieving that interest. This is called the strict scrutiny test. It is the most stringent standard that courts apply, and it applies regardless of whether the racial discrimination in question is reverse racial discrimination.

The new policy in the Minneapolis public school system expressly discriminates between racial groups by providing additional review of proposed suspensions of black, Hispanic and American Indian students for nonviolent behaviors.

Even if we assume that the new policy furthers a compelling government interest, the policy is neither narrowly tailored nor is it the least restrictive means available.

Providing review of all suspensions for racial bias or training teachers on unconscious bias are two examples of other ways to address the problem without the school district resorting to institutionalizing reverse racial discrimination.

The district risks having its new policy crumble as soon as the first Asian-American or white student suspended for nonviolent behavior challenges that suspension in court as unconstitutional, with, of course, the support of a special-interest legal defense fund.

The district will then need to expend public dollars on attorney’s fees to fight a losing battle perhaps all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. That money would be better spent on teachers.

[Covenant]

Minor point: This was a Superintendent's stop-gap solution, not a sweeping new rule instituted permanently. I don't say that to downplay why this is a badly handled policy, but to call into question the amount of "concern" we are seeing about this policy. While it is a bad standard to work from, since the problem is disproportionality in punishment, not in behavior, the real question is why some kids are 10 times more likely to be suspended for the same behavior that some other kid gets mere detention for, this is not going to be enshrined permanently. Thus is will be unlikely to stay in place even until a case could be brought to court, let alone be decided upon. I think the degree of outrage here, especially outrage which seems poorly educated as to the actual circumstances at play, is sour grapes rather than civic interest.

I saw this pop up on Breitbart, well known to be a reactionary news-site par excellance, so I'm guessing the increased visibility of this situation is due to various conservative sites feeling giddy to announce actual bias on the parts of non-white people. That does, unfortunately, make a lot of "concern" over this issue to be suspect.

Especially when the quoted says "even if we assume..." when I think it is well established that there is a compelling interest in making sure the school system (a government body in essence) is not unfairly disciplining some students based on skin color and undermining their goal of education. That is absolutely a pressing interest. This fellow sounds like another sour grape, but I think everyone could agree that a review of the entire disciplinary process would be better (and be a better scientific survey of the disproporationate disciplinary problems) than just focusing on the most visibly effected students.

Especially because among the most unfairly targeted kids were the disabled, with no respect to color mentioned, who would be still being unfairly punished.

Though there were several procedures put into place. I believe there was a complete moratorium on suspensions among the youngest children. It is possible there is a similar moratorium on disabled children.

[White Haven]

Okay, so if your black/brown/purple/Minbari suspensions are ten times your white suspensions why would you open yourself up to a legal issue by 'only' reviewing the vast majority of your suspensions, and not all of them? Seriously, saying 'we're gonna review all this shit' isn't even a major increase in cost or workload over 'we're going to review 91% of this shit' and it doesn't expose you to legal issues. I could understand if it were the other way around and adding the white suspensions would do horrid things to the workload, but this...this is just puzzlingly dumb.

[Covenant]

I can only imagine she did this because she thought that nobody would mind, which is a rather naive point of view to have. Even if this is only being carried by conservative outlets as a way to dogwhistle for a Two Minutes Hate it does show a lack of understanding about this situation should be handled. The only non-hypocritical way of handling this is reviewing the entire process. As you state, it should not the terribly more cumbersome, and as I state, it would do a better job of addressing all the complaints (including unfair practices towards the disabled students) rather than simply attempting to correct a perceived imbalance. It is entirely possible that there are other factors at-work here. Maybe there is discrimination against the particular white kids which are being punished as well: there could be a disproportionate amount of poorer children being suspended as well. We would not be able to tell unless the whole thing is being reviewed. Right now all we know is that someone is doing a shitty job.

[madd0ct0r]

She did it as a warning shot to schools to start looking at what's happening before the head is asked to justify something.