Fairwood Elementary School Case Study

(a) With the growing amount of literature uncovering the racial disparities in school disciplinary practices, this study wanted to delve further and explore factors that contribute to the racial disparities of school suspensions specifically concerning Black students, and examined elementary age children and elementary teachers to perhaps determine a genesis of this discrepancy. The student’s overall level of behavior problems, characteristics of the classroom (i.e., overall level of disruption), and the teacher’s ethnicity were considered as potential factors that may contribute to the overrepresentation of Black students.

The public schools system acts as an early introduction into the criminal justice system not only through the enactment of out of school suspensions that contributes to the high dropout rates amongst inner-city children but also as an early labeling and socialization tactic through the need to have security officers and metal detectors. Through the suspension process teachers, adults and students alike associate the reasoning and purpose of the suspension to criminal behavior placing words such as offender, crime, and self-defense when incidents pertaining to black men occur, they uphold the rules of the school regardless of the reasoning behind the call for administrative assistance within instances of delinquency or emotional and behavioral challenges, and neglect to fix the problem of grouping all students specifically minorities as one (Gibson

Racial disparities in school discipline have garnered recent attention in national reports issued by the U.S. Department of Education and Justice (U.S. Department of Education, 2014; Gregory, Hafen, Ruzek, Mikami, Allen, & Pianta, 2016). Suspension rates Black students are two to three times higher than those from other racial and ethnic groups. Various research has documented that Black students remain overrepresented in school discipline sanctions after accounting for their achievement, socioeconomic status, and teacher- and self-reported behavior (Gregory et al, 2016). There is a difference as to the reasons why White students are sent to the office versus Black students. Black students are sent to the office for subjective reasons such as “disrespect” and “perceived threat”, while White students are more than likely to be referred for more objective reasons including, smoking, vandalism, and leaving school without permission. (Gregory, et al, 2016). African Americans and especially African American boys, are more likely to be disciplined and often receive more out-of-school suspensions and expulsions than white students (Todd Rudd, 2014). Suspending students is taking away time from them being in the classroom. Students who receive suspensions, lose instructional time, fall behind on course work, become discouraged, and ultimately drop out…recent research has shown each suspension a student receives can decrease their odds for high graduation by any

I plan to establish discipline by warning those students who misbehave at first giving them two chances to act appropriately. If a student still misbehaves, I will cut their privilege to go outside down by five or ten minutes according to the severity of their inappropriate behavior. If a child still misbehaves, I will take the issue to

Out of school suspensions (OSS) are often enforced with the assumption that students receiving the suspension are less likely to repeat the problem behavior in the future. However, this has been proven to be false. Suspending a student for engaging in a certain behavior does not in fact serve as a deterrent from the behavior but as a deterrent from attending school instead. In actuality, receiving just a single suspension can increase the probability of a student experiencing academic failure, school dropout, and involvement in the juvenile justice system. Knowing this, some educators still believe that for many students, suspension can serve as an effective lesson. One of the greatest concerns that educators and administrators face is the matter of classroom management. It is part of their job to ensure a safe, productive and supportive classroom allowing students to learn and grow to their greatest potential. Though there are several strategies gauged towards managing a classroom, the most severe offences often lead to either in or out of school suspension. Some of the largest concerns faced with out of school suspensions is that they are often ineptly applied, used unfairly against students of color and seemingly ineffective at producing better behavior. Also known as exclusionary discipline, the majority of offenses that led to OSS have not been centered around violence but instead emphasised issues of classroom insubordination and defiance. In some rather extreme cases

Over the past decade disciplinary issues in the schools have increased. Children are no longer showing respect to those in authority. This problem has caused students to not only decrease in their academic achievement but also decrease in their real world social development. African Americans are amongst one ethnicity group to experience bias. In the context of school discipline, race and gender stereotypes particularly function to criminalize African American youth and to reinforce cultural beliefs about perceived inherent behavioral deficiencies and African American cultural norms in need of “social correction” (George, 2014). African Americans are placed in the stereotypical norm of having discipline problems in the schools. Especially African American girls. In a 2014 national data report, African American girls accounted for 12% of all suspensions (George, 2014). With that being said, African American girls are suspended at least “six times the rate of white girls and more than any other group of girls and several groups of boys.” (George, 2014) This is a huge problem in our schools that needs to be addressed.

A school’s Behavior Matrix can create a school climate that reinforces good behavior, a positive and safe environment, encourages responsibility of actions, builds positive relationships, ensues high expectations, and builds community (Muscott, Mann & LeBrun, 2008). The consistency of responses, consequences, and rewards will create an atmosphere that promotes positive behavior and discourages negative behaviors. The strategies set forth by the Behavioral Matrix are set up for the entire school population focusing on the students that do not necessarily have behavioral issues. It is mainly for the purpose of increasing student achievement, discourage problematic behaviors, and increase positive interactions throughout the school environment (Bradshaw & Pas, 2011). Therefore, the goal of a Behavioral Matrix is in fact to strengthen positive behaviors that are already in place and give a consistent disciplinary action guideline to move those individual that commit negative infractions towards positive direction. Positive Behavior Support systems are set up to acknowledge the good that students accomplish, and does not allow infractions to define who they are and allows for them to reinstatement the good

School data suggests that the decision to suspend or excel a student depends on several factors including prior history of the student, particulars of the situation, and the teacher’s ability to manager classroom behavior (Skiba, 2003). However observations of classroom behavior show that the majority of students removed from urban classrooms were not primarily due to dangerous or major infractions of disciplinary policies and usually they weren’t even the worst offenders.

Black students begin receiving far more suspensions than white children beginning as early as preschool. Compared to white children, black preschool children were 3.6 times to receive an out-of-school suspension... Schools that have a predominantly black and Hispanic student population tend to have higher rates of discipline against students of

As a major source of referrals to the juvenile justice system, eliminating the use of zero tolerance policies by public school administrators is a critical step in ameliorating detrimental effects on minority adolescents and in efforts to close the school-to-prison pipeline. Currently, research suggests zero tolerance policies are ineffective at increasing school safety and that suspending or expelling students puts them at higher risk for dropping out of school and committing delinquent acts [citation-Black]. Nonetheless, minor disciplinary problems should not involve law enforcement.

The following discussion of practice and policy related issues found within the article puritan to a “qualitative” study “conducted in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota metropolitan area from September 2009 to May 2012” (Gibson & Haight, 2013, p.264). The main objective of the study was to evaluate the “culturally nuanced” definitions and perceptions on out-of-school suspensions; In hopes of discovering new ways in which “schools and families can work together to decrease racial disparities in out-of-school suspensions” (Gibson & Haight, 2013, p. 263). Thirty participants were interviewed within their own homes through “in-depth, individual, and audiotaped interviews.” (Gibson & Haight, 2013, p. 263). In reviewing the study interviews, a few practice-related issues were discussed, concerning educators lack of understanding of cultural diversity among their students, as well as school personnel 's failure to fully listen to each individual 's concerns when addressing discipline issues.

Discipline problems in schools often becomes a hot topic discussed nowadays. This issue has widely spread throughout mass media. Each day we will be served with news of a discipline problems among students.

School discipline is to ensure that students and the campus staff are safe and peaceful. According to the U.S. Department of Education on Rethinking Discipline (2017), “Teachers and students deserve school environments that are safe, supportive, and conducive to teaching and learning.” The idea is to decrease bad behavior and school violence which will lead to fewer suspensions and expulsions. There are rules and limitations when it comes to student discipline; there are acts in which students can and must be disciplined. For examples, if a student quality’s for special needs some different guidelines protect them under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act’s (IDEA). Furthermore, the Education Code, Section 48900 was implied to discipline students who committed any wrongful doing such as attempting or threatening to physical harm another person. In the case f any wrongfulness, the student is forced to be disciplined by being suspended or expulsed from school.

There is no doubt that schools need some disciplinary action to maintain school safety and promote learning. Proper discipline ensures the safety of students and teachers, creates conductive learning, and removes troublemakers in order to improve the school climate for others. By 1993 The Kalamazoo Public Schools have adopted a zero-tolerance policy out of fear towards punishment. According to Russell Skiba, an American educational psychologist known for researching school discipline and school violence, “this zero-tolerance policy has lead to an substantial increase of expulsions, suspensions, and dropout rates” (Skiba). The National Center of Education Statistics Report that “94% of schools in the US have a zero tolerance for weapons and firearms and 87% have a zero tolerance for alcohol.” (education stats) Kalamazoo Public Schools claims that they implemented the zero tolerance policy to send a message that certain behaviors will not be tolerated no matter how minor. The zero- tolerance policy seems to cause more problems than it solves. According to school suspension rates from Kalamazoo Public Schools, school suspension is not reserved for the severe behaviors. Although school fights and violence are the leading causes for suspension, lesser non-violent crimes (tardiness, cutting class) have the same punishment. The zero-tolerance policy needs to be changed to be more lenient towards less severe crimes. Certain behaviors in schools should have different punishments

As an engaged member of the community I am deeply concerned with the progress and well-being of our children. I am led here today to encourage you to consider taking a new path as you rewrite the code of conduct for the students of this district. There is a terrible system at work in the public school circuit, which is the school-to-prison pipeline. For those of you who are not aware, this is a force to be reckoned with. I have seen its destructive path rummage through neighborhoods of color. As a result of zero-tolerance laws that were adopted in the 1980s and 90s student’s actions are under extreme scrutiny, and the consequences of those actions are great (Heitzeg, 91). They include in and out of house suspension for actions that include bringing “…all sorts of ‘weapons’ but also alcohol/drugs, threatening behavior, fighting on school premises, and minor ‘misconduct’ such as tardiness, ‘defiance’/insubordination and disorderly conduct” (Heitzeg, 91). Zero-tolerance means just that, in most cases, you make the wrong kind of mistake and you are out. Only, these policies are not specific about what is and is not tolerable (Heitzeg, 91). Sadly, 43% of expulsions, not suspension but expulsions, are due to insubordination (Heitzeg, 91). The decision of what makes a certain behavior intolerable is at the discretion of your principals, deans, teachers and staff, and it is very subjective. How can we expect our children to know what behaviors to avoid when it is not clearly