School suspensions a big factor in student failures

By Gracie Bonds Staples

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Yvonne Ponder’s son was suspended so many times she lost count.

But each time, the 43-year-old Lawrenceville mother said, she witnessed her son, a special education student since ninth grade, fall farther and farther behind.

“He was so far behind he was never able to catch up,” Ponder said.

According to state Department of Education figures, more than 370,000 students were placed in in-school and out-of-school suspension last year.

In all, Georgia students lost more than 1.8 million days of instruction last year due to suspensions.

The practice has recently come under scrutiny by student advocates who argue the more time spent in such disciplinary holding cells, the greater the chances a student will fail to complete the school year or drop out altogether.

Experts agree, saying failure to keep up with peers and negative experiences such as suspension are the two biggest factors that drive drop out rates.

“If you figure 1.8 million lost days and divide by 180 days the maximum number of days a student typically attend school, that’s the equivalent of 10,000 kids being out of school the whole year,” said Walter Haney, professor of education at Boston College. “What an incredible waste.”

In-school suspension or ISS, is widely used in place of suspending students from school altogether. Students are given their assignments to complete, but are isolated from their regular classroom.

In most districts, an ISS assignment is used for disruptive behavior, tardiness and other minor infractions and can range from one to five days. Out-of-school suspension is for more serious infractions including fighting and bullying. Depending on the school district, those suspensions can last as many as 10 or more days.

Matt Cardoza, a spokesman for the Georgia Department of Education said that while one day out of the classroom is too many for any student, schools have to consider the negative impact of leaving the student in class.

“If a student’s behavior stops the learning process from going on for the rest of the class something has to be done,” said Cardoza. “It wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the students to leave them there.”

Isolating a student from classroom instruction isn’t fair either, especially in light of the state’s efforts to improve student academic performance and graduation rates, said Jennifer Falk, a parent and student advocate with the Georgia NAACP.

Although keeping students in school is better than sending them home, Falk said schools need more than a room and a teacher for in-school suspension to change behavior.

Rather than suspending students, she said, school systems should focus on research-based programs that reinforce positive behavior and actually reduce suspensions. Educators says the most effective in-school suspension programs address both academic and social needs, especially since suspended students frequently have both academic and behavioral problems.

Falk said the high suspension rates came to her attention in August while she was looking at disciplinary data for Gwinnett County schools.

“I began to wonder how many days we actually lose across the state,” she said. “I was startled to learn students had missed more than a million days of classroom instruction. You have to wonder what the full impact is to these kids.”

Falk said suspended students are less likely to receive instruction from certified teachers or have access to adequate books and computers.

Cardoza said it’s difficult to quantify the impact of ISS and OSS on students because every student is different and learns at a different pace.

However, school staff work with students to complete missed assignments, he said.

“We set the standard in the curriculum,” said Cardoza. “We say that all students needs to be at this proficiency level by a certain time of year and districts are encouraged to make sure students in ISS and OSS are getting the standards and instructions that the state requires. We tell them the what and they determine the how.”

Gwinnett schools spokesman Jorge Quintana said age, discipline record and the severity of the violation all factor into how a student is disciplined. It’s up to the discretion of school leaders to make the determination, he said.

In the case of an OSS, Quintana said students have to appear before a disciplinary panel, which decides whether additional consequences are warranted. These could include long-term suspension, placement in an alternative program, or expulsion.

Keith Bromery, spokesman for Atlanta public schools, said in some instances students are given after-school detention. That allows a student to stay in class and gets their attention, since most want to go home.

“In some instances you don’t have a choice but to at least temporarily remove the child from the classroom if the behavior is such that it disrupts the classroom,” he said. “If left there it’s not just that child who is not learning, it’s his classmates as well.”

In addition to detention, Bromery said the district encourages rewarding good behavior and offers programs in violence prevention, conflict resolution and literacy.

“What we’ve found is that kids who are not literate or up with their classmates are the kids who tend to get in trouble,” said Bromery. “If you get their literacy up so they can engage in what’s going on in the classroom, they’re less likely to be disruptive.”

Each program is tailored to individual schools, Bromery said.

Haney said there are other ways of disciplining students who misbehave that do not so severely undercut their educational opportunity, including after school programs and working with parents.

Trying to get the schools to work with her when her son was assigned to out-of-school suspension was perhaps Keisha Robisnon’s biggest disappointment.

“To me, schools nowadays don’t do enough to intervene,” said Robinson.

Beyond that, she didn’t have a problem with her son Nahree’s suspension.

“I thought it was warranted even though my son didn’t start the fight,” she said. “My problem was with him because he knew the rules.”

Robinson said the 13-year-old learned his lesson and has avoided being suspended since that time in elementary school.

Now a freshman at Wheeler High School in Marietta, Robinson said her son understands “that any time the school calls me we have a problem.”

The threat of suspension, she said, keeps him focused.

In her son’s case, Ponder believes the repeated suspensions only served to keep the focus on her son.

“He was suspended for every little thing,” said Ponder as she thumbed through a thick folder holding her son’s voluminous suspension record. Ponder said Devin was suspended for everything from fighting to allegedly glaring at his female teacher to asking too many questions.

“Once he was suspended, it just got worse.”

By the time Devin graduated in May, Ponder said his grades had gone from As, Bs, Cs, to barely passing.

“When he graduated I was glad,” she said. “I was so tired.”