Iowa districts should find alternatives to out-of-school suspensions
The number of students suspended from Des Moines schools rose slightly in the 2010-11 school year. Administrators gave 4,172 students either in-school or out-of-school suspensions.
However, it’s apparently common for students to be suspended more than once during the year, because the district reports 12,793 “suspension events” last year.
Yes, when one is not interested, particularly, in attending school, one can find all sorts of ingenious ways to get kicked out.
Minority students were suspended at a disproportionately higher rate. Des Moines school board member Dick Murphy said the district “has searched the nation for effective remedies” related to minority suspensions but “has found very little.” He said the board is in the midst of looking into the issue of suspensions, including a breakdown of incidents by grade level.
JUST STOP SUSPENDING MINORITIES, IDIOT!
“Research often shows that most suspensions occur at the sixth-grade level and the least at the fifth-grade level,” said Murphy. “We may have to look at better preparing students for the middle school experience in order to decrease the sixth- grade suspensions. But, first we need the data.”
Alternatively, you may have to look at educating middle school teachers to stop suspending minority students as a matter of course.
He said the district was also going to explore what time of day suspensions occur to institute preventative measures, like more staff in certain areas of a school.
Other districts in this state should be examining this issue as well.
Iowa schools suspended, expelled or somehow removed about 47,000 students from school in about 70,000 separate incidents in the 2009-10 school year. Districts can suspend students for as long as 10 days. According to the Iowa Department of Education, the top two reasons for in-school suspensions: attendance policy violations and disruptive behavior. For out-of-school suspensions: disruptive behavior and fighting without injury.
More than 900 suspensions were doled out for tobacco-related offenses.
Barrington Consolidated High School, in the 70's, had a designated smoking area outside the school. Kids smoke, so be it. Why kick 'em out for it? Because, it's gasp, against the LAW? Well, I'm gonna bet there are plenty of high school ATHLETES who get caught smoking who DON'T get kicked out, because it would "hurt the team." (They are too talented to get the boot.)
As Iowa considers education reform, leaders must better understand why thousands of students are being dismissed from thousands of days of classes. What alternative consequences are there for wrongdoing? Have suspensions become so commonplace that students don’t even care about them anymore?
How about considering this: What if the wrong-doing is being perpetrated by TEACHERS not prepared to cope with "uppity (black)" or "fiesty (white)" students, and have their own agendas and their own prejudices - yes, trust me, TEACHERS can be at least as prejudiced as anybody else in society - and, at least in some cases, with solid, although limited, real life's experiences with miscreants and malcontents (or, studnents who actually are smarter by far than the teacher - yes, this DOES happen, and NO, teachers frequently don't like it)
Schools should especially rethink “out of school” suspensions. It’s hard to imagine that sending a kid home for days accomplishes anything. It may do more harm than good for some students. Kids are left to sleep in and lounge around the house, which is hardly a “punishment.” They also miss class time and fall behind in their school work.
May do more harm than good? Gimme a break. IT DOES more harm than good. How in the world will a kid make up 10 days of classes missed. He can't. They are not coming back.
Out-of-school suspensions can result in kids being banned from extracurricular activities. Having to drop out of a school play or lose your place in a concert can be devastating. Some students may be so embarrassed they never want to rejoin. That doesn’t “teach them a lesson.”
An assistant principal who left my high school the same year I graduated could afford to go back into teaching. One of his students, Gary Sinise, had some authority issues, and was coming up with very low grades. The teacher cut him a deal - audition for the play, get the part, attend all the rehearsals, and do the performances and I will give you a grade you don't deserve - a higher grade than the one you've earned. And thus, it came to pass that Gary Sinise agreed to the deal, held up his end, and, will, you can catch him on CSI New York, or in Forest Gump, etc, etc, etc
In-school suspensions make more sense. Students have to get up in the morning and go to school. They sit in a room and can study. Teachers are able to give them tests so they don’t fall behind. The students aren’t home playing video games.
BINGO! Great suggestion. KUDOS!
Jon Thompson, superintendent of the Aplington-Parkersburg district, said, “The principals within our district do not believe in out-of-school suspensions and rarely have issued this type of consequence.”
More school administrators should come around to that way of thinking.
Demand it of them, or hold them accountable and fire them if they don't. That ought, pretty much, to do the trick.
Everyone understands kids do incredibly stupid and sometimes dangerous things. Schools have limited options for punishment. But is depriving students of education really punishment? Does it make them value learning more? Do they want to return to school and do a better job?
Probably not.
What everyone does not, apparently, understand, is that ADULTS do incredibly stupid and sometimes dangerous things - but frequently go without getting caught. when they don't get caught, society has no option for punishement, and, likely, the adult will do it again. It's simply a double standard. As little respect as this country has for women, it has even less respect for its children. Witness this report, just in.
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