Five thousand. That’s how many students were suspended from Dallas Independent School District in the fall of 2019.
Children who experience just one suspension, are twice as likely to become involved in the criminal justice system than those who are never suspended at all.
Children who experience just one suspension, are twice as likely to become involved in the criminal justice system than those who are never suspended at all.
In the Pleasant Grove zip code where I teach, in Dallas, Texas, roughly one percent of people are incarcerated. There is only one other zip code in the entire state, South Oak Cliff, with a larger share (about 2 percent).
Research has shown that there is a correlation between education and incarceration. Generally, the more educated a person is, the less likely they are to come in contact with the criminal justice system.
While many students have been learning remotely since the pandemic began in March 2020, the percentage of students returning to in-person classrooms is rising. And now that COVID-19 restrictions are lessening, this number will continue to increase—and, with it, the possibility that discipline suspension may revert to historic trends.
For those who are back in schools already, sending students home for days at a time because of misbehavior can negatively change the trajectory of a child’s life. This is why school suspensions—and any other exclusionary practices that keep students from classrooms—must be banned.
As an educator and organizer, I advocated for my school district in Texas to be the first to do just that. This is both a necessary and life-changing step.
As an undergraduate student, I learned of the school-to-prison pipeline from the pastor of the on-campus church, Joseph Graham, who was writing his Masters thesis on the ways schools can work as funnels to prisons for youth.
Once, he shared with me a story of his time spent at a local jail where he interviewed incarcerated men and women, who all shared the experience of school suspensions in high school. The majority ended up dropping out of school.
Later, in my first year as an eighth grade teacher, I was well-intentioned but ill-prepared and struggled with managing the behaviors of students. They would fight, get suspended, come back, and fight again. They would use profanity with a staff member, get suspended, come back, and do it again.
I witnessed that suspensions couldn’t be the only solution to handling misbehavior because it simply wasn’t working.
In addition to students missing significant learning time with each suspension, the students who were suspended were overwhelmingly Black. The majority of the students at my school were Latinx, and yet Black students were overrepresented in the discipline data.
This issue isn’t isolated. In Charlotte, North Carolina, Black students were suspended at almost nine times the rate of white students. In New York, Black students within New York City were suspended at more than five times the rate of white students.
As a result of COVID-19, however, discipline has evolved. In Memphis, Tennessee, students can receive virtual in-school suspension for misbehavior, while misbehavior may lead to students being blocked from district platforms in Chicago.
Some would argue that banning suspensions would allow misbehavior to go unchecked. In truth, however, it would allow time for us to examine the root causes of the misbehavior and ultimately prevent it from happening again.
Students, in most cases, have a reason for misbehaving that suspension does not begin to address.
Students, in most cases, have a reason for misbehaving that suspension does not begin to address. Perhaps they were hungry and running on a short fuse. Maybe there’s something going on at home. Maybe they never learned how to properly handle conflict. The “maybes” are endless but worthy of investigation.
Students do not need suspension; they need mental health support and social-emotional learning, or SEL. Students who received SEL were found to be better able to cope with emotional stress and manage their emotions, which can lead to fewer suspensions and improved academic performance.
Until teachers, administrators and policy makers determine why behavioral problems are occurring, they will continue and more Black students will be disproportionately suspended, and, potentially, arrested.
It is not the job of schools to keep prisons open by funneling students into them. It is, however, the job of schools to ensure that students have not only learned the core subjects but ultimately learned how to navigate a world that can be cruel and unforgiving.
Fortunately, there are other solutions. In California, when a student misbehaves they are sent to a counselor instead of being sent home. Districts in Ohio host circles where students can share how they are feeling, in hopes of de-escalating fights among other students.
And in 2017, the school district in Dallas became one of the first in Texas to ban discretionary out-of-school suspensions for students in second grade and younger. In 2021, it should become the first to do this for all students.
While school districts around the country are considering banning suspensions, it is critical that family members, educators, administrators, and policy makers support the move.
If just one suspension can change the entire trajectory of a child’s life, imagine what none could do.