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Unintended Consequences:
The Impact of "Zero Tolerance" and Other Exclusionary Policies on Kentucky Students
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INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND - JUVENILE CRIME AND THE ADOPTION OF ZERO TOLERANCE POLICIES
METHODOLOGY
FINDINGS
CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
ENDNOTES
This study focuses on three questions:
In Kentucky, several horrific juvenile crimes heightened the public's concerns, and the state's juvenile laws were toughened dramatically in 1996. A particularly important incident occurred in December, 1997 when 14-year-old Michael Carneal shot into a prayer group of students at Heath High School in West Paducah. Tragically, Carneal's shootings killed three young people and wounded five other students. The incident became front-page news in Kentucky and throughout the country.
The Kentucky school shooting was followed in April, 1999, with an even-more infamous school shooting. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed a teacher and 12 students and wounded 23 others at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, before they turned the guns on themselves. The Columbine school shooting was the worst in a series of a dozen school shootings in the U.S. over an 18-month period. Although violence in schools is actually quite rare - the chance of becoming a victim in a school-associated violent death is less than one in a million - these incidents had an enormous effect on public perceptions of school danger and on school policies.
The Kentucky study reviewed data on "status offenses" (which are not crimes for adults) and other offenses, guns and weapons charges, drug and alcohol offenses in schools, and law violations. The data do not support the claim that violent juvenile crime is a serious problem in Kentucky's public schools. On the contrary, the overwhelming majority of referrals from schools to juvenile court are for the status offenses of truancy and being "beyond the reasonable control of the school." Many other referrals include behavior that may be obnoxious and typically adolescent, but not dangerous. Referrals to court for weapons and firearms offenses are low. Most referrals for drug offenses are for minor possession charges. Referrals for alcohol offenses are also very low. Most reported "law violations" are not serious enough to warrant referral to court.
Reaction by Kentucky's Schools
By far the most common response by Kentucky's schools to student misconduct is out-of-school suspension. Kentucky school officials use expulsion rarely, a welcome contrast to other states and large cities. Nevertheless, Kentucky suspends a large number of students - more than 68,000 in 2000-2001 - for so-called "board violations" that are adolescent and disruptive, but not dangerous. Examples of board violations include: "defiance of authority," fighting, disturbing class, failure to attend detention, "inappropriate sexual behavior," profanity or vulgarity, and use of tobacco.
Groups Disproportionately Affected
Throughout the state, the suspension rate for African-American students for both school board policy violations and for law violations was significantly greater than for white students. For board violations, the rate was more than twice as great in four school districts, more than three times as great in five school districts, more than six times as great in one district, and more than seven times as great in one district. For law violations, in eight districts it was more than twice as great as for white students; in four other districts it was at least three times as great; in three more districts, it was more than 5 times as great. In Jefferson County, it was 17 times as great as for white students. These data raise serious concerns that school officials have unlocked the back doors of public schools and sent African-American children away. The result is that they are denied an education.
Shift of Responsibility
A further problem created by "zero tolerance," and other exclusionary policies in many Kentucky schools is that the policies shift the responsibility for young people from the educational system to the courts. Judges and court staff suggested that these referrals were beginning to overwhelm Kentucky's juvenile and family courts. This situation is of particular concern because court staff made it clear that they were often ill-equipped to resolve the learning and behavioral problems of young people referred to them by school officials. Judges and court staff often feel that school officials regard them as magicians, having some mystical ability to resolve behavior problems that surface in schools.
This study focuses on three questions:
In response, Congress passed the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994, which required states to expel firearm-carrying students for at least one calendar year. As a result, all 50 states, including Kentucky, created gun-free school policies. According to a 1996-7 report by the U.S. Department of Education, 94% of U.S. public schools had implemented so-called "zero-tolerance" policies with regard to firearm possession in schools.2 It is important to note that the federal law passed in 1994 prohibited "firearms," not "weapons." Nevertheless, state school boards and local school districts expanded the provisions of the law to include virtually any object that could be considered a weapon. The states also expanded their interpretation of the federal law from an initial prohibition of illegal drugs to include prescription drugs, and even some drugs available over-the-counter.
It was up to each state to draft policies that defined what constituted a weapon. In some states, the definition of what constituted a weapon -- or threatening behavior -- was so vague, and the discretion of school administrators so broad, that children were suspended or expelled for such behavior as creating paper handguns3 and using their fingers as guns.4 In some jurisdictions, children were suspended under guidelines that monitored what they said as well.5
On December 1, 1997, a school-shooting incident at Heath High School in Paducah/McCracken County, in western Kentucky, brought a national focus to violence and guns in schools. On that day, 14-year-old Michael Carneal shot into a prayer group of students, killing three young people and wounding five other students.9 The incident became front-page news in Kentucky and throughout the United States.10
On April 20, 1999, students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed a teacher and 12 students and wounded 23 others at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, before killing themselves. It was the worst of a dozen school shootings over an 18-month period. While such school shootings are, in general, quite rare, and, in the words of a federal study, "few children are likely to fall prey to life-threatening violence in school settings,"11 nearly everyone agreed that "each school-based attack has had a tremendous and lasting effect on the school in which it occurred, the surrounding state, and the nation as a whole."12
Consequently, many public schools in Kentucky and throughout the nation created "zero tolerance" -- and other strict exclusionary -- policies with respect to questionable student behaviors, as well as guns and drugs. The public seemed to call for something dramatically different in treating juvenile misbehavior. School systems in Kentucky sought to reassure parents that schools were safe.
Many of these policies apply harsh penalties to innocuous conduct, and seem to be "fueled less by genuine safety concerns" than by political considerations. 14 Other critics have referred to zero tolerance policies as resulting from an attitude of "hyper-vigilance."15 Many of the decisions made by local school boards have been criticized as being too routine and "by-the-book," without taking into account the particular circumstances of individual students or incidents. These "one-size-fits-all" approaches may severely punish students for violating the letter - but not the spirit - of such policies.
Nationally, several prominent incidents highlighted extreme decisions by school officials, including students who were subject to disciplinary actions for bringing Midol or Advil to school, bringing a water pistol to school, or taking a slurp of Listerine (which is 22 percent alcohol) during school hours.17 A junior high school student from Belle, West Virginia who gave a zinc cough lozenge to a classmate was suspended for three days. A kindergarten boy in Newport News, Virginia was suspended for bringing a beeper on a class trip. A nine-year-old boy from Manassas, Virginia was suspended for one day for giving breath mints to a classmate. A 13-year-old boy, who was an honor student, from Fairborn, Ohio received an 80-day suspension for bringing ibuprofen to class, a disciplinary action which later was reduced to three days. A six-year-old boy from Madison, North Carolina, who kissed a girl on the cheek, was given a one-day suspension. An 11-year-old girl from Columbia, South Carolina was arrested and suspended for having a steak knife in her lunchbox to cut chicken she had brought to school to eat. A 10-year-old boy was expelled for bringing a one-inch plastic knife to school. An 8-year-old girl from Alexandria, Louisiana was expelled for bringing to school a one-inch pocketknife that was attached to her grandfather's pocket watch chain.
Throughout the U.S., some zero tolerance policies have had unintended consequences on children with special health needs. For example, some Kentucky schools prohibited asthmatic students from carrying their own "rescue inhalers" on school premises, putting the children's health in jeopardy. Once these practices became more public, Kentucky became one of eleven states during the late 1990s that passed legislation that specifically allowed students to carry their own inhaler to protect their health interests without fear of arrest.18
These early stories prompted some reviews of zero tolerance policies to look at whether there are racial disparities in the application of school discipline.19 A Michigan study found that, while 40% of the students in the districts surveyed were African- American, they accounted for 64% of school expulsions. A Seattle study found similar racial disparities.20
A national report, referring to zero tolerance policies as a form of "racial profiling in schools," pointed out that in 1998, African-Americans students comprised 17.1 percent of the student population nationally, but 32.7 percent of those suspended. 22 Over the last 25 years, studies have shown that students of color are suspended at a rate two to three times that of white students. 23 This higher rate may also apply to Latino students in some areas of the country. In fact, Latino students may be significantly under-counted in school discipline data, because they are counted as white or "other."24
There is also concern that school discipline policies fall more heavily on children with educational disabilities. Students with special education needs are often caught in "the web of zero tolerance" and they are over-represented among students who are expelled 25 Some get in trouble as a result of their disabilities.26 Yet research indicates that few educationally disabled students who are excluded from school present real or serious dangers to other students or staff.27 In 2002, the Children's Law Center, based in Covington, KY, sponsored a series of forums across the state for juvenile justice and child welfare professionals on "The Rights and Needs of Disabled Students," in conjunction with the Kentucky Departments of Juvenile Justice, Education, and Public Advocacy, the Administrative Office of the Courts, Cabinet for Children and Families, Eastern Kentucky University's Training Resource Center, the National Center for Education, Disabilities, and Juvenile Justice, and the National Institute for Children, Youth and Families. Although comprehensive data are not available on school discipline and students with educational disabilities, the professionals at the forums agreed that the issue is a matter of continuing concern.
The many stories of excessive and inappropriate use of suspension and expulsion, as well as concerns about disparate impact of school discipline on youth of color, have led to a national backlash against zero tolerance policies. For example, in February, 2001, the American Bar Association voted to oppose zero tolerance policies that have a discriminatory effect, or mandate either expulsion or referral of students to juvenile or criminal court, without regard to the circumstances or nature of the offense or the student's history.28 Similar resolutions were approved by the South Carolina Bar Association in May, 2001, and by the Pennsylvania Bar Association in November, 2001.
Since few suspended or expelled students receive educational services or alternative placements, the days out of school are lost, creating educational gaps from which many students cannot recover. Moreover, if a primary goal is to reduce misbehavior, out-of-school suspension and expulsion are completely counter-productive: they reduce adult supervision over students, and give them unstructured time in which to get into trouble. Research demonstrates that the high crime hours for young people are 3:00pm to 6:00pm, the after-school hours when they do not have other activities to occupy their attention. Equally important, suspending students put these children further behind in their studies. Finally, repeated suspensions for minor misbehavior convey a clear message to young people that the school system is authoritarian and arbitrary, and does not value them as individuals.
This situation is tragic because it is both devastating to students and largely unnecessary. There are a variety of alternatives to out-of-school suspensions that have been implemented successfully in parts of Kentucky and other states. These alternatives hold young people accountable for their misbehavior but avoid the deleterious effect on students' education.
This study relied on data collected and reported by the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), located in the state capitol in Frankfort, which include referrals of students by school officials to local family and juvenile courts. While the AOC tested its new data collection system during the July 1, 1999 to June 30, 2000 school year, the first reliable year of school data was collected during the July 1, 2000 to June 30, 2001 school year. Recently the AOC collected and analyzed its second data set, this time for July 1, 2001 to June 30, 2002.
This study also relied on data collected by the Kentucky Center for School Safety (KCSS), in Richmond, Kentucky. The Center for School Safety collected data on school incidents that led to students being suspended and expelled from school. The researchers involved in this study have reformatted some of the Center for School Safety data so that (1) counties can be compared and (2) data available at the local level can be ranked.
This study also relied on verbal and written comments from nearly five hundred professionals from Kentucky's public schools, juvenile courts, the legal community, mental health staff, social workers working in the child protection system, and staff working in the juvenile justice system throughout Kentucky. The information was collected by the Children's Law Center at four forums convened in 2001 and 2002 in Covington, Louisville, Richmond and Bowling Green, Kentucky. The observations and findings from these group discussions assisted the researchers by providing a deeper understanding of how public schools and local courts are operating. It also helped the researchers involved in this study better understand the nuances and complexities of the accusations made against children.
In view of the comments the researchers heard in the public forums, some of the quantitative data should be read and interpreted with a certain amount of caution, since they reflect only one perspective -- that of school officials -- of what may have happened. Many of the non-school professionals who participated in the four forums convened by the Children's Law Center indicated that there was often another side of an incident - that of the student who was accused of some infraction, a perspective which was seldom known by school officials.
Analysis of Table 1 and Figure 1: In the 2000-2001 fiscal year, of the top seven allegations, nearly 89% (5,767 of 6,478) of all school referrals to courts were for two offenses: (1) being habitually truant from school, and (2) being "beyond the reasonable control of the school." Both of these are "status offenses" and would not be crimes if the individual were an adult. In a sense, the child's "status" as a young person makes this behavior a violation of the law.
The number of school incidents referred to court decreased from 7,192 for 2000-01 to 6,986 for the most current year, 2001-2002. As in the prior year, the overwhelming majority of offenses during 2001-02 were for habitual truancy (65.8%) and "beyond the reasonable control of the school" (9.3%), a total of almost 75% of the total referrals.
The number of incidents that might be considered serious is very small, particularly considering the huge number of students that attend public schools. For example, more than 625,000 students attend Kentucky's public schools each year. These students attend more than 1,400 elementary and secondary school buildings in 179 school districts in 120 counties in Kentucky. Since there are 180 days each school year, 1,400 school buildings, and more than 625,000 children in attendance, the number of potential interactions between students, and between students and staff, is enormous, while the number of serious crimes is tiny by comparison.
Putting This Data in Context: Of course, abuse of teachers and violent behavior should not be tolerated. But there were few such incidents in either year, and the overwhelming majority of other offenses listed in Table 1 are misbehavior that is adolescent but not violent. For example, a person is guilty of "disorderly conduct" when he causes public inconvenience, annoyance, or alarm, by, among other things, making "an unreasonable noise."30 To cite another example, an assault in the fourth degree, which is a misdemeanor, may be as simple as a school yard fight where one student got the upper hand. Likewise, being "beyond the control of school authorities" is a blanket provision without a clear definition, a behavior that may be applied to almost any type of disruptive or non-compliant behavior.
Moreover, reporting data on violence or threatening behavior in schools is a complicated matter, for several reasons. First, some reports are allegations that cannot withstand closer scrutiny, and are dismissed in subsequent court proceedings. Second, the actual behavior may range from a simple disagreement that escalates into a shoving incident between classmates to an actual injury sustained by a teacher or another student. Third, students often get in trouble for what they say, not what they actually do. In those cases, a young person who loses his temper can be charged with verbally "menacing" or "terroristic threatening" even though no actual violence occurred.31
In addition, school officials may "overcharge" a student for a particular incident in order to "send a message" to the child, his friends, his parents, and the court. Or, in reverse, school officials may "go easy" by charging a youth with a lesser offense because he is popular, a good athlete, or is perceived as coming from a good family. The identical incident can be described in many ways, depending upon the school official's perception of the seriousness of the incident, familiarity with the students involved, knowledge of the criminal law, ability to see two sides of the story and present a balanced perspective for court officials, and the message that they are trying to send.
Also, schools may differ in their policies regarding reporting matters to the police and to the courts. If a school reports an incident directly to the police, the incident may not be reported as a complaint from a school. Consequently, the incident may not be included as a school-initiated complaint in the data bases for the Administrative Office of the Courts or the Kentucky Center for School Safety. Thus, the number of reports based on behavior at schools may be more than the approximately 7,000 reported annually to the AOC.
Finally, the federal Gun-Free Schools Act and the state statutes, by requiring new and detailed listing of school incidents, may promote a "culture of reporting" that focuses excessively on numbers while requiring formal school responses to misbehavior that was previously handled informally by teachers and principals.
In the 2001-02 school year, the total number of weapons-related incidents referred to the courts declined to 33. The 2001-02 weapons-related incidents comprised less than one half of one percent of the total referrals to court. Again, the AOC analysis for 2001-02 found a total of 31 "firearms" allegations, a drop from 37 the prior year.
It is not clear why the data collected by these two agencies differ. Nevertheless, it is evident that -- during the last three school years -- there have been less than 40 firearms-related incidents each year in Kentucky schools, which is a tiny fraction of referrals, as illustrated in Figure 2.
In the 2001-02 fiscal year, the number of firearms allegations dropped from 37 to 31. Most significantly, the number of such allegations in Fayette County declined from 10 in 00-01 to 3 in 2001-02. Franklin County increased to 6 in 2001-02.
The 2001-02 school year followed a similar pattern for substance-related charges: 62.2% of all types of charges totaling 12 or more were for minor possession allegations, while 18.5% were for intoxication, and 19.3% for trafficking and possession of a controlled substance.
In the 2001-02 school year, Bullitt and Fayette counties reversed their rankings with Bullitt County referring 49 drug-related allegations to its local courts and Fayette referring 34. No other county had more than 13 referrals.
In the 2001-'02 fiscal year, a total of only 27 alcohol-related incidents were referred to courts, compared to 42 the prior year. Bullitt, Calloway, Hardin, Madison, and McCracken counties are the only counties that had more than two alcohol-related referrals in both school years.
Unfortunately, the Kentucky Center for School Safety and the Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts do not use identical definitions for crimes, which means that the researchers involved in this study were unable to compare the number of incidents in which school officials thought a violation of the law had occurred with the number of referrals those same school officials made to Kentucky's juvenile and family courts. Because the terms used by both agencies were not identical, the researchers involved in this study were not able to draw comparisons between these two data sets. Nonetheless, the Kentucky Center for School Safety data provide a different perspective of how frequently students allegedly violate state laws, according to school officials. For example, Table 8 shows the number of Part I (more serious offenses) law violations reported by school authorities during 1999-2000 and 2000-2001.
For the next school year, 2000-01, larceny-theft was again the most prevalent allegation made by school officials, accounting for almost 66% of the total serious allegations. The rankings for 2000-01 were the same as the prior year, with aggravated assault (13.6%), arson (10.5%), burglary (7.3%), robbery (4.1%), and motor vehicle theft (1.0%). As in 2000-01, there were no homicides or rapes alleged in the 2000-2001 school year.
Tables 9 and 10 report the number of Part II law violations, which are less serious offenses, reported by school authorities during 1999-2000 and 2000-2001.
The Part II offenses listed in Table 9 increased from 6,690 in the 1999-2000 school year to 7,246 in the 2000-2001 school year. The most frequent allegations that students violated the Part II crimes listed in Table 9 were for allegations of drug abuse (41.2% of the total), simple assault (26.6%), followed by disorderly conduct (7.9%) and vandalism (4.1%).
Table 10 includes another group of Part II "law violations" that was included in the two most recent reports released by the Kentucky Center for School Safety.
In the 2000-01 school year, the number of these kinds of allegations dropped from a total of 197 the prior year to 125 for the most current reporting period. For 2000-01, there was a jump in the forgery and counterfeiting type of charges, which accounted for 41.6% of the total for that year. Running away and curfew violations accounted for 24% of the total. The number of firearms-related allegations dropped significantly from 34 the prior year to 19 in the most recent reporting year.
Table 13 shows the percentages of students who were suspended and sent home, sent to alternative placements (e.g., alternative schools, but not "in-school" suspensions or Saturday schools), subjected to corporal punishment, expelled with services (meaning that the student is expelled, but is still receiving some form of schooling from the school district), and expelled without services (where the student is receiving no educational services from the school district).
The researchers first looked at the data for "board violations," or violations of school board policies which are not violations of the law. Tables 14-16 document the suspension rates of all students, white students, and African-American students in Kentucky. Table 17 compares this suspension data by race. The researchers involved in this study then looked at the suspension rates for "law violations." Table 18 includes schools with the highest-ranking suspension rates for law violations for all students. Table 19 has suspension data for white students. Tables 20-21 compare this data by race in the highest-ranking school districts.
Tables 18-21 look at suspension data, this time for "law violations," in which children were suspended for allegedly violating a criminal law.
In order to compare the disparities between African- American suspension rates and white suspension rates in local school systems, the researchers involved in this study compared the rates from Table 19 (white students) and Table 20 (African American students) and developed a ratio as a means of comparison. These rates are listed in rank order in Table 21.
It also is important to note that Kentucky does not currently capture data on Latino youth, which is an emerging population group in Kentucky and other states. National studies have indicated these youth can be subject to disparate and more punitive treatment than their white peers. For example, in one recent report, Kentucky was identified as incarcerating Latino/a youth at a rate 2.1 times greater than for white youth.33 (A recent study of the possible racial profiling of Hispanics during traffic stops34 would seem to indicate that Kentucky may not be immune to differential treatment of this population group). In the Recommendations section of our report, we suggest that such data be collected in order to determine whether the trends identified with African-American students apply to Latino and Latina students with respect to suspensions and other disciplinary actions.
Recent media attention has illustrated how some school officials are responding to the suspensions problems identified in this report. It would appear that adopting a different attitude towards suspensions as a solution to school behavior problems is an important first step. The principal of Boyd County High School, Jerry Johnson, has said: "We decided to use our 'safe school' money, not to buy a metal detector, but to buy a social worker." As another example, school officials at this high school, which is located in the eastern part of the state, are using a Saturday school instead of relying on suspensions.35
Judges and court staff suggested that these referrals were beginning to overwhelm Kentucky's juvenile and family courts. This situation is of particular concern because court staff made it clear that they were often ill-equipped to resolve the learning and behavioral problems of young people referred to them by school officials. Judges and court staff often feel that school officials regard them as magicians, having some mystical ability to resolve behavior problems that surface in schools.
It is not just the state's courts that are being overwhelmed. The fragile system of prevention programs run by faith-based groups, local fiscal courts, non-profit groups, and state agencies also has been affected by an increased number of referrals from schools to courts. One of the most significant barriers documented in the forums conducted by the Children's Law Center is that current programs serving students are crippled by a "lack of funding or other resources which can adequately address" their needs. Another barrier is that this lack of resources causes the use of standardized, "cookie cutter" approaches for these children, so that "individualized" approaches are not used.
The Children's Law Center report concluded: "There is often a tendency among service providers to 'pass the baton' and/or blame other systems for the failure of a young person...."37 Thus, schools blame the courts for not being able to stop student misbehavior, and the courts feel that they have become the "dumping ground" for disruptive students, many of whom have learning or behavioral problems that the schools have not addressed. This tendency of the courts, the schools, and others to point fingers at each other may be a function of overly-rigid school suspension policies, or lack of resources to deal with learning and behavioral problems in schools. There also may be lack of adequate training for school and court personnel, inadequate investments in community-based alternative education and support programs, political posturing to avoid accountability, and the desire to get rid of problem students and send them "anywhere but here," or a number of other factors. While the finger-pointing continues, students lose days and weeks of class time. Equally important, the finger pointing perpetuates a cycle in which the unique educational and behavioral needs of the children and youth are ignored, Ultimately, this cycle leads to discouraged and dispirited students who may lose their opportunity to be educated, and who may turn to crime.
A recent study by researchers at the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky focusing on racial disparities in Kentucky's juvenile justice system provides some illustrations about how the most routine decisions can be racially biased. While youth of color comprise about 10% of the state's children's population, they account for 39% percent of the youth detained (before their adjudication) and 27% of those convicted and committed to residential facilities (after their adjudication). The report found 17 separate points in the juvenile justice system where system personnel can exercise discretion. These "decision points" ideally allow the system to be flexible and responsive to the behavior and needs of each individual child. But they also allow professionals in the system to act on stereotypes about young people, and to interject bias about racial minorities or low socio-economic groups.39 Other research has demonstrated that system personnel such as probation officers are significantly affected by stereotyped perceptions of white youth and youth of color, with the result that youth of color receive harsher punishment 40
The answer, of course, is not to eliminate discretion by either school officials or court personnel. Rather, zero tolerance policies must be balanced with common sense and an appreciation of the potentially devastating consequences of out-of-school suspensions. Moreover, cookie-cutter approaches to school discipline should be avoided: each child should be held accountable for his or her individual behavior, but in a way that will help children to complete their education and become productive citizens. Zero tolerance policies that prevent school officials from exercising discretion and considering the individual circumstances in each incident are a mistake that has had enormous unintended consequences for the children of Kentucky. Such policies arose from what one commentator called the "politics of exasperation" after the school shootings.42 They should be replaced with policies that foster education for all of our children.
Schools must balance their understanding of odd, silly, or risky behaviors with an equal comprehension that these experiences provide adults with opportunities to teach, and students with opportunities to learn and grow. Local communities must transcend their emotional responses to youthful risk-taking, with a graduated, proportionate, reasoned approach to resolving these issues. There are a number of promising approaches throughout the country.44 Given the nation's history of discrimination, it is particularly important that decisions made by school, law enforcement, and court personnel not perpet-uate differential treatment of children of color.
In the spirit of prompting a new dialogue about school discipline, this report suggests several recommendations for five groups that are critical to prompting change in Kentucky, including: (1) parents and students, (2) principals and site-based decision-making councils, (3) local school superintendents and school boards, (4) the Kentucky Department of Education and (5) juvenile justice system personnel. These recommendations are not necessarily comprehensive, but they provide people interested in school suspensions and referrals to court with a place to start.
1. Parents can get skilled and organized at the local level. Several community groups around Kentucky are already organizing to study and act upon differences in school achievement rates between children of color and white students. Some of the concern about differences in school achievement may, in part, be a consequence of differential suspension of students from school. It sends the message loud and clear that certain students are not wanted in the classroom, and before long, some students internalize the implicit and explicit things they hear, a step that begins the process of dropping out. Recognizing that parents who may be concerned about suspension practices may feel isolated, several prominent groups can be helpful in getting you organized, including the Democracy Resource Center in Lexington and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC), both of which can help local groups organize around school issues.
2. Youth can be part of the solution, too. The Central Kentucky chapter of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth has organized students to speak for themselves. Since youth have a first-person familiarity with school practices, students can give voice to some of their concerns about how zero tolerance and school suspension policies are implemented. Throughout the country, children and youth are becoming more involved in civic affairs, and school reform is a highly significant issue among youth.45
3. Interested parents and youth can hold their own community meetings. An important part of the change process is publicizing the issue and educating other parents about the school suspension problem and the possible solutions. Fortunately, some of this information is available at the school level, so you can contact the Kentucky Center for School Safety or the Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts to get more specific information on your schools. After becoming familiar with the data, parents and students can challenge some of the conventional ways of responding to problem behavior by offering suggestions to site-based decision-making councils.
4. Local communities can consider alternatives to suspension programs. Suspension should be the last -- not first -- resort. Local groups have to educate themselves about alternative ways to respond to school-based behavior problems. Luckily, there are some good examples of local schools that are addressing their school drop-out rate by "keeping students in the building, being attuned to students needs, and encouraging their success."46
1. Principals and SBDM councils can check available data, or change data collection procedures. In order to get an idea of how big a problem each school might have with respect to suspension rates, the councils must review the data collected by the Administrative Office of the Courts and the Kentucky Center for School Safety, which may be available at the school district and school building levels. (Looking at how school systems respond to Latino and Latina students should also be part of this process.)
2. Principals, especially, can change the school climate. Increasingly schools are coming to understand the benefits of resolving school discipline problems and creating a more engaging school climate, including increased attendance (that results in more state funding), a decline in the drop-out rate, and better achievement scores (that also may generate more financial rewards under the Kentucky Education Reform Act). Taking the advice of Gene Kirchner (the assistant principal of Walton-Verona schools, an independent school system of 1,000 students), schools can, first and foremost, be filled with engaging activities that entice and encourage students.47
3. Principals and councils can educate themselves about alternatives to suspension and other ways of preventing youthful misbehavior. In October, 2002, the National Crime Prevention Council selected Woodford County High School as part of a national initiative to pilot school violence prevention initiatives. With the help of the Kentucky Center for School Safety, the Woodford County pilot project will focus on "soft" services that emphasize building better student-teacher relationships as well as on "hard" techniques that rely on purchasing more hardware and security procedures.48
4. Principals and councils can put themselves in students' shoes by understanding the role that cultural differences -- and learning disabilities -- both play in misbehavior. The forum discussions convened by the Children's Law Center last year confirmed that many children are being suspended unnecessarily because of their learning disabilities. That is, some children do not process information the same way that others do, so this confusion may impair their ability to respond to directions from teachers and other school officials. In other situations, racial or ethnic background may be a barrier to understanding between students and principals.
2. Superintendents and school boards can create a tracking system that monitors school disciplinary practices. In order to hold local schools accountable, school boards and superintendents should study the local data available through the Administrative Office of the Courts and Kentucky Center for School Safety. In addition to these sources, each school system should create a simple database to track suspensions, expulsions, and court referrals. As previously indicated, this tracking system should also collect data on Latino and Latina students.
3. Superintendents and school boards should encourage their schools to emphasize prevention over reaction. No less an authority than the U.S. Surgeon General has suggested that reducing youth violence may be a function of implementing "preventive programs that teach students alternative strategies for solving their problems."49 A good place to start is to reject the zero tolerance policies that automatically exclude children from schools based on certain behaviors, and start anew by exploring other options beside suspensions and court referrals.
4. Superintendents and school boards should allow school officials some discretion in disciplinary matters. Consistent with re-thinking the application of universally-applied zero tolerance policies that take discretion out of the hands of local school officials, local school boards should consider empowering officials in each school with the authority to individualize school disciplinary decisions. We recommend that these local officials be provided with the disciplinary authority to take individual differences into account.
1. The Kentucky Department of Education should consider zero tolerance and other exclusionary policies as part of the larger process of identifying why there is an "achivement gap" between African-American and white students. To its credit, the Kentucky Department of Education has recently paid considerable attention to the academic gap between African-American and white children in Kentucky. While there are many reasons for this gap, at least one of those reasons is the messages -- explicit and implicit -- that these students hear from school officials through discipline policies and practices.
2. The Kentucky Department of Education should add to the national initiative in Woodford County by working in conjunction with the Kentucky Center for School Safety to fund demonstration and pilot projects that balance creating safe schools with an equivalent concern to avoid unnecessarily excluding students from school. Nothing speaks more powerfully than money. We recommend that the Kentucky Department of Education attempt to secure additional financial resources from the legislature -- or use its own discretionary funds -- to expand the number of pilot projects that will test alternative ways to manage school conflict before resorting to school suspensions or referrals to court.
3. The Kentucky Department of Education should use the existing data from the Administrative Office of the Courts and the Kentucky Center for School Safety, to develop a systematic, uniform monitoring system to determine the effectiveness of school safety measures. In the wake of the West Paducah school shootings, Kentuckians were desperate for answers to the problems of school gun violence. As we have pointed out, however, the chances of being shot in a school are less than those of being struck by lightning. In order to reassure the public, a record-keeping system should be created that evaluates the effectiveness of pilot programs and model projects, particularly as compared to those school systems that rely on zero tolerance and other exclusionary practices.
4. The Kentucky Department of Education should provide more training opportunities for school personnel. Fortunately, a body of knowledge and skills has evolved in recent years to foster understanding between school personnel and children of color. We repeat the advice of the 2002 Children's Law Center report that school officials have to recognize their mutual obligation to assure safe schools while at the same time protecting the interests of racial minorities. Training is an important first step to changing attitudes and behaviors.
1. Juvenile justice system personnel should examine the data from the Administrative Office of the Courts on school-based complaints in their local jurisdictions to analyze trends in court referrals by school officials, prosecution, adjudication, and placement. Like parents, students, principals, site-based councils, superintendents, schools boards, and the Department of Education, juvenile justice personnel should become knowledgeable about school-based complaints and their consequences in the justice system.
2. Local juvenile courts should promote effective judicial practices to eliminate unnecessary court intervention in school-related referrals and disparate impact upon children of color, and to promote effective practices that address the individual needs of children. As the most important individuals in the justice system, judges should provide leadership in addressing school discipline issues and developing necessary reforms.
3. Justice system personnel should ensure that children coming before the court have access to appropriate and equal educational opportunities. All justice system personnel should be responsible for making sure that children receive required components of general and special education programs. Juvenile defenders, in particular, should challenge policies and practices that exclude children from schools for minor behavioral infractions.
4. All justice system personnel should receive comprehensive, up-to-date, and effective training on key issues related to school discipline. The training should include positive practices that are alternatives to out-of-school suspensions and court referrals, special education and disability law, due process requirements, and ways of addressing racial disparities in school discipline and in the justice system.
Dr. Richart has authored, or co-authored more than 150 monographs on children's issues. He also is co-author of the seminal work on child advocacy, Fairness Is a Kid's Game: Children, Public Policy and Child Advocacy in the States. Among other specialties, he has been referred to as "the historian of the contemporary modern child advocacy movement."
Ms. Brooks serves as the coordinator for the Central Juvenile Defender Center, a regional affiliate office of the American Bar Association's National Juvenile Defender Center in Washington. D.C. She is on faculty for the NJDC's annual defender leadership summit, and has lectured and consulted on juvenile justice, conditions of confinement, indigent defense issues, and education issues throughout the country.
He has written more than 20 articles and book chapters on civil rights issues and the rights of children, and has taught at Boston College Law School, the Washington College of Law at American University, Boston University School of Law, the University of Nebraska Law School, and San Francisco State University. He has received awards for his work from the American Psychological Association, American Bar Association, Alliance for Juvenile Justice, and Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. He is the coordinator of Building Blocks for Youth, a national campaign to protect the rights of minority youth in the justice system and promote fair and effective juvenile justice policies.
RESOLVED, that the American Bar Association supports the following principles concerning school discipline:
FURTHER RESOLVED, that the ABA opposes, in principle, " zero tolerance" policies that have a discriminatory effect, or mandate either expulsion or referral of students to juvenile or criminal court, without regard to the circumstances or nature of the offense or the student's history.