Black, Hispanic students more likely to face harsh punishments at nation’s schools

Though Austin students fare better than the national average, a majority of U.S. students who receive out-of-school suspensions are students of color.

More than 70 percent of students involved in school-related arrests or cases referred to law enforcement were Hispanic or black, according to a Department of Education civil rights report. Moreover, black students, especially black males, were more than three times as likely to be suspended or expelled as white students.

“I’m not surprised by that,” said Kristi Beckman, integration coordinator in Austin Public Schools. “I’ve heard that that is the case (nationally).”

In Austin, student out-of-school suspensions across ethnic backgrounds are a little more proportionate to Austin Public Schools’ student demographics. Yet black students are still more likely to face at least a half-day of out-of-school suspensions, according to district data. Though about 7 percent of the district’s 4,600 or so students are black, 18.5 percent of the 309 students who received at least a half-day out-of-school suspension district-wide in 2011 were black. That’s an increase over 2010, as 14.5 percent of the 245 students in the district who got out-of-school suspensions are black, according to Office of Civil Rights data released Tuesday.

“The sad fact is that minority students across America face much harsher discipline than non-minorities, even within the same school,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told reporters Tuesday.

Civil rights scholars and education experts say they aren’t surprised by the results. They blamed get tough, “zero tolerance” policies that they say contribute to a “schools-to-prisons” pipeline. The problem, they say, is that zero tolerance applies more to minorities than white children. They say it’s time for a dialogue on appropriate and fair discipline.

Duncan said some school officials might not have been aware of inconsistencies in how they handle discipline, and he, too, hoped the report would be an eye-opener. “We’re not alleging overt discrimination in some or all of these cases,” he said.

Austin officials are aware of the integration struggles they face, and the impending integration struggles coming as more students enter the district. Integration lessons are voluntary among staff development, though many district staff have completed exercises like the Intercultural Development Inventory, a cross-cultural survey that identifies how culturally sensitive and competent people are.

“There’s some volunteer pieces, but we don’t do nearly enough of that and we totally understand that,” said Austin High School Principal Brad Bergstrom. Bergstrom lead a series of informal talks last year with eight black male students on race and how to address black students’ needs. The talks, which he called “courageous conversations,” were based on a national education model designed to promote cultural understanding. Bergstrom and the students walked away with some key lessons, according to the principal and several students.

“What’s happening is it’s that misinterpretation,” Bergstrom said. “Students are meaning one thing, and teachers are interpreting it to mean something else.”

Bergstrom said the high school is conducting several informal initiatives, including teachers holding similar conversations with students on their own and a counselor shuffle, which means there are four counselors, one for each grade, instead of two academic counselors, a mental health counselor, a school support liaison and other staff. The counselor shift means staff work with less students, which allows them more student-to-counselor interaction. The school will formalize some of those initiatives next fall when staff members start the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports system, a somewhat data-driven behavior curriculum used for more than 10 years at schools across the nation which defines and structures behavior.

“I would really be remiss if I didn’t say that our teachers in this building do an absolutely phenomenal job on their own of really trying to understand our kids,” Bergstrom said.

At Ellis Middle School, staff are seeing positive results from PBIS, which they started this year. From educating students on proper hallway behavior and defining proper classroom behavior to rewarding good behavior and recognizing students for good deeds. (Read more about PBIS in the Herald Sunday.)

Ellis staff says the building has gone through a definite change, with preliminary data suggesting a large decrease in suspensions and less students sent to the office for major infractions. Seventeen percent of sixth-graders in the first semester of 2011 had major infractions, compared to 11 percent of sixth-graders during this year’s first semester.

There’s a 35 percent decrease in out-of-school suspensions building-wide this year compared to last year first semester. Last year, 64 suspensions at Ellis involved students of color during the first semester, compared to 40 during this year’s first semester. Thirty-nine suspensions involved white students last year, compared to 27 this year. Though there’s still another semester to consider, the initial data is seen as a good sign.

“That’s an increase in the right direction,” said Kevin Anderson, Ellis’s school psychologist and member of Ellis’s PBIS staff team.

Though there’s a different student body in each year, staff are reportedly seeing better results and a better learning environment. That comes from a lot of pre-teaching and review lessons whenever students need reminders, according to staff. Since behaviors and consequences are clearly identified and, moreover, applied that way throughout each class, the new system removes elements of racism, socioeconomic prejudice or favoritism, according to staff.

“When we started the year, we didn’t assume anything,” said Assistant Principal Jessica Cabeen. “We treated each student as the same, and we gave each student the same rules of the game to start the year.”

— The Associated Press contributed to this report.