Suspensions for Texas’ youngest have dropped. But thousands still kicked out of class
At Fort Worth’s T.A. Sims Elementary, students typically start their days with fist bumps or hugs complete with welcoming grins from the staff — from the janitors to the cafeteria workers to Principal Andrea Harper.
“We are truly all hands on deck,” Harper said. “Everybody is in the hallways greeting our students.”
It’s a simple routine, but one that educators hope will build young scholars who focus on learning because they have been wrapped in a culture that highlights their positives instead of relying on punitive actions to address behavior.
“Our goal is to make sure our children are in class learning, but they have to feel safe,” said Harper, whose campus had 656 students as of Thursday.
The work underway at Sims Elementary is multi-layered and intentional with teachers and counselors connecting with students so they can meet their social and emotional needs before behavioral issues get in the way of learning.
This effort is being replicated across the district because the goal is zero suspensions. It comes as communities focus on finding alternatives to school suspensions.
This week, a report found that while school suspensions have decreased for Texas’ littlest learners, thousands of students in pre-k through second grade are still hit with out-of-school suspensions, despite a recent state law limiting when a school can do so.
The findings come as Texas public school districts, such as Fort Worth and Keller, have been working to reform school discipline. Educators have been using strategies that focus on the social and emotional needs of children before conflicts turn into suspensions.
In the 2017-2018 school year, 70,197 suspensions were doled out to students in pre-k through the second grade, a decrease of nearly 31% from 101,248 suspensions in the 2015-16 school year, according to Wednesday’s report from Texans Care for Children, a nonprofit that works to improve children’s well-being.
The largest drop was in out-of-school suspensions, which fell by 79%, from 36,475 in 2015-16 to 7,640 in 2017-18. Meanwhile, in-school suspensions saw only a slight drop, from 64,773 to 62,557 over the same time period. Data is not yet available for the 2018-19 school year.
While progress was made, David Feigen, an early education policy associate with Texans Care for Children, said work still needs to be done
“If you factor in in-school suspension, there’s still a lot of kids being removed from class,” Feigen said. “So those are kids that now are being taken out of the structured classroom environment, they’re being alienated from their peers, they’re being told that school maybe isn’t right for them when they’re as young as 4 years old.”
Research has shown that students who experience discipline that removes them from the classroom are more likely to repeat a grade, drop out of school and wind up in the juvenile justice system — a phenomenon often referred to as the school-to-prison pipeline.
And while the overall number of suspensions decreased, the report found certain groups of students are still being disproportionately affected.
Students in foster care were over three times more likely to be suspended, according to the report. Black students were 2.5 times more likely to be suspended compared to white students and five times as likely compared to Hispanic students. Students in special education were almost three times more likely to be suspended than those not enrolled in special education, and boys were over seven times more likely to be suspended than girls.
Working toward reform
The sharp decrease in out-of-school suspensions came the same year that a 2017 state law went into effect. The law limited the reasons by which a student in the second grade or lower could receive an out-of-school suspension. Among them: assault, selling or using drugs or alcohol, or bringing a weapon onto campus.
Despite the restrictions, 7,640 pre-k through second grade students still received out-of-school suspensions.
“I think it’s safe to say that many of those were not consistent with House Bill 674,” Feigen said of the suspensions’ reasons.
Previously, there was no way to know if those suspensions fell within the allowed parameters, because schools weren’t required to report the reason why an out-of-school suspension was issued in the first place.
Going forward, that won’t be the case, due to a law that was passed this legislative session that requires districts to report additional information on out-of-school suspensions, such as the student’s race, the basis for the suspension and its length.
Michael Steinert, assistant superintendent for support services in Fort Worth schools, said state law doesn’t prohibit suspensions of Texas’ youngest learners, it restricts them. In some cases, the district has justified these suspensions even as they are working to make them more rare.
“We tell them (school administrators) it should be a last resort,” Steinert said.
In Fort Worth schools, when the law took effect, district leaders changed their policy to reflect the new law and extended it to third grade. During the 2017-18 school year, suspensions for students in those grades dropped 77%, he said.
Last school year, the district suspended 386 students in grades pre-k through second grade. Most fell under the category of containing the element of a violent offense, and it was deemed a safety concern by educators, Steinert said.
High rates
The Mineral Wells school district, located 50 miles west of Fort Worth, had the third-highest rate of in-school suspension of pre-k students in the state in 2017-18.
The district issued 57 in-school suspensions. With 242 pre-k students enrolled for that year, that translates to a rate of 23.5 in-school suspensions per 100 pre-k students, according to the report — significantly higher than the statewide average of 0.92.
But Mineral Wells Superintendent John Kuhn said that is not the case.
Kuhn said that because districts must report attendance to the Texas Education Agency, students were marked with the code used for a partial in-school suspension if they missed attendance, even for being in a “cool down room” to calm down or waiting to speak with a counselor or administrator.
“There is no other code for ‘temporarily out of class,’” Kuhn said. “We had a very strict adherence to our understanding of the coding requirements, and unfortunately, that’s been interpreted in this report to mean that we had very high numbers of in-school suspensions. We did not.”
Of the 57 in-school suspensions listed, Kuhn said 42 of them were marked with the code for a partial in-school suspension, which the district often uses for when students may be in a cool down room.
The remaining 15 occurrences were marked as full-day in-school suspensions, Kuhn said.
Kuhn said the discrepancy won’t be an issue in the future, as a bill passed this legislative session changes the rules for reporting.
Feigen said that while he’s heard of underreporting of suspensions, he hadn’t heard of this specific issue of potential overreporting. But he noted it was an area that would benefit from clarification on reporting requirements.
“We need additional guidance from the Texas Education Agency on what exactly is counting as an in-school suspension and what doesn’t, because we certainly want consistency across the state on what’s being counted and what isn’t,” Feigen said.
An ongoing issue for Fort Worth schools
The issue of school suspensions has been on the district’s front burner for several years. Educators have been trying to make changes on different fronts, including from a racial-equity lens.
In 2017, the Star-Telegram reported how the district planned to address why African-American female students were being suspended at higher rates than the rest of the district.
At that time, 62 % of the girls suspended in the 2016-17 school year in Fort Worth schools were black. Educators and community members were alarmed by the statistic.
Fort Worth, which has more than 84,000 students, is described as a majority-minority district. The majority of female students are Hispanic — 63%. About 22% are African-American, while white students make up about 11%.
The district uses restorative practices to address behavior issues.
“Relationship building is key,” Steinert said, explaining that teachers are trying to understand a student’s back story and put behavior into the context of a child’s personal story.
At Sims Elementary, counselors visit classrooms and participate in circle times. They notice who is lethargic or quiet and get to know children so they can address needs. Are they hungry? Are they having problems at home?
This is the second year that the district uses “The First Five” strategy that allows teachers to connect with their students on the first five days of school. Teachers are encouraged to take time to learn about their students.
At Sims, students and teachers work together creating a “living document” called a “Respect Agreement.” Students and teachers outline how to treat each other. A common theme that emerges is that students can laugh together, but not at each other.
Harper said they reinforce positive behavior throughout the school. The school has a compliment wall that highlights the good choices students are making. Getting recognized enough times on that wall can win a class “a compliment party” complete with pizza.
The school staff also recognizes positives among each other on a display called, “Bulldog Bingo.”
At circle time, students are “truly coming together in a circle learning how to respect each other’s ideas,” Harper said.
Students are encouraged to sort out their feelings and moods in “calming areas.”
In this setting, Harper said suspensions are a rare last resort. The goal is to help young students manage their behaviors so they can focus on academics such as reading and math. They are also a source of inspiration for the educators.
“They are fun,” Harper said. “They are full of energy. They are like little sponges taking it all in.”
This story was originally published August 30, 2019 at 5:30 AM.
