Board approves new DPS discipline policy: Split vote marks apparent end to long, tangled fight
August 22, 2008
By Nancy Mitchell
Rocky Mountain News
Denver Public Schools board members approved a new student discipline policy Thursday on a split vote, overriding concerns that it may put some teachers at risk and push some students into police custody.
Board member Arturo Jimenez argued to delay a vote on the policy until Sept. 2 to determine whether a change proposed by the activist group Padres y Jovenes Unidos might resolve outstanding questions.
But other board members said school is back in session and teachers need to know now how to respond to discipline problems.
"We've got to get something out," said board member Kevin Patterson. "If we agree it's 98 percent right . . . I don't want the perfect to get in the way of the good."
The 5-2 vote to approve the policy - with Jimenez and Jeanne Kaplan saying no - marks the apparent end of a long and tangled chapter in DPS history that saw a spike in student referrals to police and included the prosecution of a principal.
Even if Padres y Jovenes Unidos is not completely happy with the new plan, said the group's co-founder Ricardo Martinez, the difference between the old discipline policy and the new is "like night and day."
Schoolhouse to jailhouse
Martinez's group was credited by board members Thursday with much of the work behind the new policy, which focuses on educating kids about bad behavior rather than simply punishing them for it.
A key goal of the change, board members have repeatedly said, is to reduce the number of students being referred to police for actions inside city schools.
"We believe this will be one of the most progressive documents in the country," Padres member Julie Gonzales said Thursday.
It was Padres that documented in its 2005 report "Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track" the rise in out-of-school suspensions, expulsions and police referrals of DPS students.
In 2004-05, for example, Denver schools referred more than 1,200 incidents for legal action.
Hispanic and black students bore the brunt of the penalties, Padres found: "Black students in DPS were given tickets at twice the rate of white students, while Latino students were given tickets at seven times the rate of their white peers."
The report helped launch a change in how schools view discipline, and a growing number began trying alternative approaches, such as restorative justice. The spike in police referrals began to decline.
But for Padres, the final piece was a formal change in DPS policy.
The new policy calls for discipline to be age-appropriate, to be consistent across schools and to strive to keep students in school as much as possible.
It calls for staff to monitor the discipline of students by race and ethnicity and says "efforts shall be made to eliminate any racial disparities."
It also calls for "significant" parent and student participation in disciplinary practices, both of the student who perpetrated the action and of the victim.
And that's where some law enforcement officials, including Police Chief Gerry Whitman, first began to raise concerns in November. Whitman said he worried the policy focused more on educating the suspect than on helping the victim.
Then, in December, a middle school principal was arrested for failing to report to police a case of sexual contact between students. Included in the evidence in the case was a DPS PowerPoint presentation about restorative justice.
Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said the principal had an obligation to immediately call police. And though a judge later dismissed the case, it raised serious concerns about the proposed discipline policy.
So Whitman, Morrissey and DPS lawyer John Kechriotis, among others, huddled in the mayor's office to come up with acceptable amendments.
Some questions linger
Monday, Morrissey met with Denver school board members to say he was signing off on the latest policy.
It now includes a hot line to Morrissey's office for DPS employees to call if they have questions about their legal obligation to contact police.
Calls to the hot line will be monitored, Morrissey and Kechriotis promised, to ensure there's no big jump in police referrals.
Thursday, it was clear that was not enough for some.
Martinez said the policy now contains a definition of child abuse that is meant to apply to adult-on-child contact, not student-on-student problems.
"I haven't seen any other that has a discipline policy with child abuse in it," he told board members.
Jimenez said he fears the addition will result in police referrals going back up, not down.
INFOBOX
Embattled charter gets new contract
* A charter that once appeared on the brink of shutdown by Denver Public Schools has a new one-year contract.
Challenges, Choices & Images charter school in far northeast Denver must abide by certain requirements in its probationary contract, including making reasonable progress in student achievement. Denver school board members approved the contract at Thursday's meeting. The school was under investigation by DPS for misuse of public funds and for hiring convicted felons, among other issues. Principal Oscar Joseph has launched reforms and said students, parents and staff are responding. He said enrollment is about "85 percent" of where he wants it to be.
DPS growth outshines rest of state
* New growth data released Thursday by the Colorado Department of Education shows DPS outperformed the state average in growth on recent exams.
The new data looks at how much progress individual students made from one year to the next. Exam results released in July compared how one group of students fared against a different group - fourth-graders in spring 2007 vs. fourth-graders in spring 2008, for example.
"It's great news for us," said Chief Academic Officer Jaime Aquino. "What we value the most is seeing the value we add. It shows parents that by sending their kids to us, they're getting better."
Filed under Schoolhouse to Jailhouse
