In our post-Columbine world and in an understandable effort to ensure that schools are safe, schools enacted “zero tolerance policies” resulting in expulsions or suspensions for infractions involving weapons, drugs, or other violent acts. These policies were designed to ensure that schools respond harshly and consistently to serious student misconduct. With time, however, the list of violations for which zero tolerance applies has been broadened to cover acts involving defiance, noncompliance, or disrespect. These policies, when rigidly adhered to (and they often are), deny administrators the opportunity to consider any extenuating circumstances related to the incident, or in many cases, the application of plain common sense when meting out discipline. One report has dubbed zero-tolerance policies as “zero-thinking policies.”
And many students are suffering the consequences of zero tolerance. The Education Department’s civil rights office in 2006 reported that 3.25 million students, or 7% of K-12 students, had been suspended at least once. Of this number, only 102,000 were expelled, demonstrating the degree to which students are being suspended for minor violations. The national media have depicted how blatantly absurd some of these suspensions have become. We’ve all read stories of where administrators have overreacted to the poor judgments of students with mandatory expulsions or suspensions: the kindergartener who was suspended for bringing a toy ax to school as part of a Halloween costume, the 14-year-old boy scout who accidentally left a pocket knife in his book bag after a camping trip who was suspended for 80 days, the third grader suspended for drawing an armed soldier, the 8-year-old suspended for bringing a toy gun to school, the high schooler who forgets to remove a box cutter from her job from her purse that she takes to school, and the list goes on.
Many of these incidents are no longer being handled in the principal’s office, but instead are being referred to law enforcement. Students are being arrested on battery charges for shoving classmates, elementary school students playing cops and robbers have been charged with making terrorist threats, students engaged in shouting matches have been charged with disorderly conduct. For many students, these are their first steps down the “school to prison pipeline”; namely, the criminalization of our nation’s children by their schools. According to the ACLU, for many students the pipeline begins with failing schools who may be responding to pressure from high stakes testing mandated by NCLB to push underachieving students out. In turn, these students may be shuttled off to inadequate disciplinary alternative schools or to the criminal courts or juvenile detention at which point it becomes extremely difficult to travel backward through the pipeline and return to public schools.
Sadly, minority students and those with special needs are disproportionately being targeted for this zero tolerance discipline. Study after study demonstrates that African American students are being suspended or expelled at greater rates than their actual numbers. And the more subjective the offense, the more likely African American students will be suspended. Nationally, the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights showed 28% of African American male middle school students have been suspended at least once vs. 10% of white male middle school students. (For girls, the number of suspensions is 18% vs. 4%.) Data from North Carolina indicate that in the 2008-2009 school year, 33% of black middle school students were suspended for a first-time possession of a cell phone vs. 14.5% of white middle school students for the same offense. For first-time dress code violations, 38.3% of African American students vs. 14.5% of white students were suspended.
IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, lays out very clear guidelines for determining if the behavior is related to a child’s disability or not and provides procedural safeguards for these students. If a child is suspended for more than 10 days, under the reauthorized IDEA in 2004, the IEP team must determine if the behavior was caused by, or had a direct and substantial relationship, to the child’s disability; or was the direct result of the school’s failure to implement the IEP. If the child’s behavior is determined to be a manifestation of the disability, the IEP must perform a functional behavioral assessment and implement a behavioral intervention plan if not yet done so, or review and modify an existing behavioral intervention plan to address the behavior. Except in cases involving weapons, drugs, or infliction of serious bodily injury, the child must then be returned to the original placement unless the school and parents agree to a change of placement. If the team determines that the behavior was not a manifestation of the disability, the child receives the same disciplinary procedures as non-disabled peers. However, the requirements of FAPE must still be met; the child must receive the services listed in the IEP. But according to the ACLU, schools routinely ignore the federal laws and fail to provide students with their due process rights. Data is hard to find for numbers of special education students who are suspended, but in Texas, special education students comprise 10% of the student population, but they account for 20% of suspensions.
Something has to give. Minority students and children with special needs are already our most vulnerable students are at greatest risk of academic failure. Students who are suspended are more likely to drop out of school, and school dropouts are more likely to land in jail. In Texas, more than 80% of adult prison inmates are dropouts. Nationally, it is estimated that approximately 32% of youth in juvenile correction facilities have special needs vs. 9% in the general population.
What can be done? For starters, schools need to recognize the racial disparity in their implementation of zero-tolerance policies and be trained in multicultural competence. They also need to make systemic changes in a district’s approach to discipline and behavioral interventions. The National Association of School Psychologists endorses specific curriculums to address violence prevention, social skills training, positive behavioral supports, and early intervention strategies. The Chicago Public Schools, the third largest district in the country, introduced the SMART program (Saturday Morning Alternative Reach-out and Teach) program in lieu of expulsions for some students who have committed non-violent infractions. But more importantly, the Chicago Public Schools have expunged zero tolerance language from its new 2007-2008 Code of Student Conduct. Instead, school district officials are adopting what is known as “restorative justice,” a program that incorporates such techniques as peace circles and a jury of student peers to determine punishment for non-serious violations. According to Charles Berman with Community Organizing and Family Issues, restorative justice is a step in the right direction.