news-record.com

GREENSBORO — Local educators believe it makes little sense to kick students out of class for days at a time for ignoring a teacher’s command or bullying a classmate.

So officials were pleased to report this summer that Guilford County Schools reduced out-of-school suspensions for two types of misbehavior — disobedience and rudeness — by 24 percent over three years.

The News & Record found another trend in the data: The racial disparity in how frequently schools suspend students for non-violent offenses appears to be closing.

In 2007-08, the district reported a difference in suspension rates of 16 percentage points for black and white students who got in trouble for disobeying school employees.

Two years later, that gap dropped to 2 percentage points.

“I do think it’s a real trend and not a dropping of standards,” said Alan Duncan, chairman of the Board of Education. “There is some improvement going on in this area, but we still have a ways to go.”

Here’s why the data are important: Many parents and community leaders have complained for years that schools suspend too many students for non-violent offenses and apply different standards to minority and white students.

In 2007, a district task force surveyed parents, teachers and students about school climate and found inconsistencies in how misbehavior is punished. Former Superintendent Terry Grier said then that he heard from students that whites who misbehave are punished differently from minorities.

“I hear that not only from African American students and Latino students, but I hear that from white students,” Grier said in a 2007 meeting. “Whether it’s a perception or reality, it’s something we need to look into.”

Teachers and administrators have some discretion in addressing disobedience and rude or obscene behavior — which represent at least half of all violations — so wide-ranging suspension rates could indicate inconsistent discipline practices among school staffs.

The district defines “non-compliance” as disobeying a school employee. “Discourteous acts” include obscene language, bullying, verbal threats and inappropriate gestures.

A recent report further supports claims of inconsistent treatment. This summer, a six-year study of nearly a million Texas children found that black students had a 31 percent higher likelihood of being disciplined for minor offenses, compared with whites or Hispanics.

Duncan recently referred to the report as a “fairly seminal moment.”

“That’s a problem we see in some of the statistics we’re looking at in our report,” he said during a July school board meeting. “We need to examine ourselves, how we’re going about the application of our (discipline) tools and is it really even-handed.”

In 2007-08, the difference in suspension rates for disobedience was 24.9 percentage points among Guilford students of different races. Disobedience resulted in suspensions 25.1 percent of the time for whites and 41.7 percent of the time for blacks.

The difference in suspension rates dropped to 1.9 percentage points for white and black students and 13.8 percentage points for all racial groups in 2009-10.

That trend continued in 2010-11, although the data are not directly comparable with previous years because of a change in reporting requirements. Still, disobedience among whites resulted in suspensions 23 percent of the time, compared to 24.1 percent for blacks. Moreover, the suspension rate for rude or obscene behavior was 31.5 percent for whites and 34 percent for blacks that same year.

School leaders attribute the progress to better analyzing discipline data and addressing misbehavior through other methods.

Aycock Middle, which has a predominantly black student population, took several steps over the past few years to reduce its violations and suspensions, according to principal Valerie Akins. Students meet with administrators quarterly to review discipline data and set school-wide behavior goals. A teacher started an all-male language arts class that curbed distractions.

And students cite a mantra in the mornings, at assemblies and athletic events: “Aycock is a civil school. We know the good. We do the good. We are responsible. We are respectful. We are caring.”

The initiatives led to a 24 percent drop in the two types of violations and a decline of 61 percent for out-of-school suspensions.

Schools also assign students to special classrooms for troublemakers, visit their homes, and require them to sign behavior contracts, get counseling or perform community service in lieu of suspension.

Elizabeth Foster, a special education teacher, said some students have cursed and even “taken swings” at her. But Foster and administrators tried to address the misbehavior through counseling and other alternatives to sending the students home, she said.

“It’s a process,” said Foster, who leads the Guilford County Association of Educators. “Some folks are too tired to go through that process with every child who walks through that door, but it does pay off.”

Contact Morgan Josey Glover at 373-7078 or morgan.josey@news-record.com