ACPS criticized for racial disparity in suspensions

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ACPS criticized for racial disparity in suspensions
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By Chris Teale (File photo)

A report issued last month criticized Alexandria City Pub- lic Schools’ record on racial dis- parities in student suspensions and recommended implement- ing restorative practices immediately to combat the problem.

Public policy and issue campaign group Tenants and Workers United authored the report in collaboration with its youth arm, Alexandria United Teens, the Alexandria branch of the NAACP and civil rights organization Advancement Project and published last month after research and a community meeting with ACPS officials.

In it, the document cites data from the 2014-2015 school year that authors said reveal that black students are nine times more likely to receive a short-term out-of-school suspension than their white peers, while Latino students are four times more likely to be suspended.

The report says the majority of these suspensions come from behavioral issues, and that ACPS should be quicker at instituting restorative practices to help ease those issues without taking students out of class. Restorative practices help repair harm caused by negative behavior and build relationships, something schools officials said they began implementing in 2013 over a five- year process.

Restorative practices include a variety of methods to build relationships, including staff facilitation of community circles involving teachers and students, where everyone has an opportunity to speak their mind.

ACPS officials were not available to comment, but in a written statement issued last month, they noted that T.C. Williams has lower than average suspension rates compared with other school divi- sions across Virginia.
While 4.2 percent of T.C. students have received a suspension, the number rises to 7.9 percent for black students, which ACPS officials said compares favorably to other districts where the suspension rate can be as high as 22 percent for all students and 25 percent for black students.

“We know ACPS has always had racial disparities,” said Ingris Moran, lead organizer at TWU. “This is not a new problem, but we know now that ACPS is actually acknowledging that there is a problem. It’s sad to know that most of the reasons that students of color are being suspended is because of behavioral issues.”

ACPS officials said the district’s efforts to fully integrate restorative practices will take between three to
five years. Eliminating disproportionality in discipline data remains a priority, and is included as part of the school system’s 2020 strategic plan.

At T.C., 10th grade dean of students Gregory Baldwin and lead academic principal Jessica Hillery have completed the first part of a restorative practices facilitator training, and are set to complete the second part this summer. Schools Superintendent Alvin Crawley also completed the first part of the training, in addition to several hundred other staff members over the past year.

But Moran said a better way of handling restorative practices would be to hire a facilitator whose sole focus is building relationships between students, staff and administrators and helping resolve any issues.

“We know there has been money set aside for restorative practices, so we’re still pushing for a restorative justice coordinator, because we can’t hold other staff accountable,” she said. “We need someone who’s designated just to be a coordinator because we know that teachers have so many other responsibilities as well as administrators. We want to hold someone accountable to do that job, and that to be their job.”

As part of Baldwin and Hillery’s training on restorative practices, they have learned how to facilitate community circles and how to help other teachers form those circles in their own classrooms. This summer, their training will involve so-called “train-the-trainer,” in which they teach all staff about the practices during the orientation period before the new school year.

“This could really change our work at T.C. by building a sense of community within our classes,” said Hillery in a statement. “It gives our students an opportunity to be heard, which can influence attendance and behavior in a positive way. It has the potential to change the culture of our school.”

In addition to a desire for ACPS to hire a restorative practices coordinator, Moran criticized the school system’s staff for declining to use a survey devised by TWU and other students to evaluate the school climate for students and asking teachers for their feedback on the practices. Moran said ACPS will use its own survey to ask similar questions instead.

A timeline at the beginning of the report shows implementation of restorative practices have been ongoing in fits and starts since 2007. Moran said that while there appears to have been some pushback from ACPS at times, she hopes there can be a greater spirit of cooperation. The start of the new school year will be key, she said, as that is when students are introduced to new teachers and starting to build relationships.

“We want to hold each other accountable and see how we can work together and see what happens after that,” Moran said. “If students are seeing that there hasn’t been much progress in the beginning of the school year, we have to think strategically on what we can do to put pressure on.”

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