Victory Towards Ending the School-to-Jail Track in Denver: Padres y Jovenes Unidos Win New Discipline Policy in the Denver Public Schools
August 29, 2008
By Marco Nunez, Director of Organizing
EDUCATION ORGANIZING NEWSLETTER, Center for Community Change, Issue No. 32, Fall 2008
After a five-year campaign to dramatically reduce the numbers of police citations and out-of-school suspensions issued by the Denver Public Schools to low-income students and students of color, Padres y Jóvenes Unidos (Parents and Youth United) claimed victory at a DPS Board meeting in August, where newly rewritten discipline policies were approved.
In 2003, Jóvenes Unidos’ (Youth United) initiated research around DPS’ discipline policy, culminating in a report entitled Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track. It was co-written with Advancement Project, a Washington, DC civil rights legal organization. Among its findings, it showed an unacceptably high number of students of color who were being issued police tickets and outof- school suspensions due to DPS’ harsh and punitive zero-tolerance discipline policy. Jóvenes members labeled this phenomenon of pushing students from the educational system into the juvenile justice system, the Schoolhouse-to-Jailhouse Track. They presented solutions to end the racial disparities in DPS discipline.
In 2005, Padres y Jóvenes together with DPS formed a discipline policy working committee comprised of DPS officials, teachers, parents, community members, and the Advancement Project to address the concerns youth raised. Together we rewrote the discipline policies with the goal of keeping students in school and learning at all times. The rewritten policy will institute several changes:
- Instead of simply punishing students for minor acts of misconduct, the policies encourage schools to work with students and their parents on preventing misbehavior before it occurs and intervening appropriately when it does occur. This new approach treats misbehavior as a chance to learn, rather as a chance to punish.
- Schools are encouraged to use in-school suspension and other school-based programs such as restorative justice to deal with minor student misconduct, so that students remain in a learning environment and the time spent outside of class is limited.
- The policies will result in fewer out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, and referrals to the police, and will make sure that these harsh measures are used for only the most serious misconduct.
During the process, Padres y Jóvenes Unidos and the Advancement Project developed an alternative Restorative Justice (RJ) discipline model for the district. The RJ program was piloted in the North High School feeder schools in 2006, and is currently at 17 schools in the district. Proving the effectiveness of alternative discipline policies, DPS’ issuance of tickets has already decreased dramatically:
Across Denver Public Schools, discipline problems are at their lowest point in at least five years. For example, the number of DPS students referred to police dropped from 1,399 in 2003-2004 to 504 in 2006-07, which represents a remarkable decrease of 64%.
Padres y Jovenes Unidos is proud of its role in shaping one of the most progressive school discipline policies in the nation. At the August School Board meeting, Board member Michelle Moss acknowledged this contribution stating, “I just really want to applaud Padres and the work that you have done with us because I really do not believe that this document would be anywhere near where it is without your leadership and without your work and without your challenging us to think about things in different ways and to really look at what is best for our students…”
The next phase of this campaign will be to educate parents and students about it
and work with the district to ensure its implementation is successful.
Filed under Schoolhouse to Jailhouse
