Young people face enough obstacles to learning — they don’t need the disruptive behavior of a classmate to make things worse. That is why, when a student becomes defiant, belligerent or violent, out-of-school suspension must be one of the disciplinary tools available to teachers to keep control of the classroom.
How public schools use suspensions is a hot topic these days, with close attention given to whether a district’s latest total is up or down and whether suspensions disproportionately fall on minority students.
A report released Monday by the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA showed the Woodland Hills School District ranked in the top 10 nationwide in 2011-12 for the highest rate of out-of-school suspensions of elementary students. It said the district suspended 23.8 percent of its students in kindergarten through fifth grade, compared to a national average of 2.6 percent.
On Saturday, a coalition of groups will discuss suspensions in the Pittsburgh Public Schools, which totaled 9,900 in the last school year, a decline of 15 percent from the previous year. A key topic will be why nearly three-fourths of the city’s suspensions went to African-American students while they account for 53 percent of total enrollment. Two related subjects are disciplinary alternatives to suspension and the effect of school absence on students who are frequently suspended.
The attention being focused on suspensions — whether they are effective, too frequent or fairly applied — is legitimate. Yet, at the same time, a school’s primary obligation to its students, its parents, its teachers and its taxpayers is to maintain a positive learning environment. That means disciplining, and sometimes removing, an unruly youth. No one said keeping order was easy.
People can debate whether suspension is the ideal response for specific misbehaviors. Some students see it as a vacation; others do more harm with a day on the street than in class. For that reason, the range of punishments should be best left to educators, perhaps in consultation with local police. And it goes without saying that just as schools and their student populations differ, so, too, will their disciplinary codes.
What should be consistent from school to school is a commitment to classrooms where learning happens and students flourish. If that means detention, suspension, expulsion — or an effective alternative — schools must be free to use what works.
First Published: February 25, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
