Schoolhouse to Jailhouse: On the Ground
In addition to attacking the over-use and inappropriate use of out-of-school suspensions, Advancement Project was the first national organization in the country to begin to define and analyze the growing trend of schools turning to police and juvenile courts for typical student disciplinary matters. Together with our community partners, we have been working “on the ground” to eliminate the “schoolhouse to jailhouse track.”
For example:
DENVER, CO
- Advancement Project has been working with our partners at Padres y Jovenes Unidos since 2003 to reform disciplinary policies and practices within Denver Public Schools. We helped the district rewrite its discipline policies, which were implemented at the beginning of the 2008-09 school year the policy now includes the following changes:
- School officials are directed to deal with minor acts of misconduct within the school setting. The emphasis is on keeping students within the learning environment and limiting the time spent outside of class.
- Out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, and referrals to the police are only available for the most serious misconduct, and their use for even those offenses is discouraged.
- Schools are required to work to eliminate racial disparities in discipline, and must continuously monitor and assess their school discipline practices through data collection and other means.
- The new policies are already serving as models for school districts and community organizations around the country.
- Advancement Project and Padres y Jovenes Unidos also collaborated with Denver Public Schools to design a proposal for an expansion of in-school suspension and restorative justice programs as alternatives to suspensions, expulsions, and arrests. In 2006, the district received a grant for $1 million from the Colorado Department of Education to implement these programs in some schools. Since then, the programs have expanded rapidly and have been huge successes for the district, as the use of suspensions in these schools has dropped dramatically while student behavior and satisfaction with the disciplinary process have both improved considerably.
- Already, our collaboration with Padres y Jovenes Unidos has led to a 68% reduction in police tickets and a 40% reduction in the use of out-of-school suspensions within Denver Public Schools.
CHICAGO, IL
- Advancement Project’s work with our partners at Southwest Youth Collaborative and other local organizations in Chicago led to the Chicago Public Schools changing its discipline code to eliminate zero tolerance practices. Instead, the district now emphasizes the use of restorative justice practices, and many fewer students are arrested in school each year.
FLORIDA
- In response to the 2005 incident in St. Petersburg, FL in which five-year-old Ja'eisha Scott was pinned down, handcuffed, and arrested by police officers for throwing a temper tantrum at school, Advancement Project partnered with the Florida State Conference NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund to organize a series of public hearings throughout the state to discuss the school discipline crisis in Florida. With the information gathered from these hearings, Advancement Project and our partners issued a report in April 2006, Arresting Development: Addressing the School Discipline Crisis in Florida, which has served as a catalyst for change throughout the state.
- Since the report, Advancement Project and the NAACP have been working with several school districts around the state to implement the recommendations from Arresting Development. Miami-Dade County has implemented many of our recommended policy changes, and the use of school-based arrests and out-of-school suspensions have been cut nearly in half. In Palm Beach County, school-based arrests have dropped by 47% since we began work there. Broward County (Ft. Lauderdale) invited Advancement Project staff to train its senior school district staff, and the Superintendent subsequently formed a committee of educators, parents, and community members to rewrite the district’s school discipline policy in accordance with Advancement Project’s recommendations.
- In February 2008, Advancement Project and the Florida NAACP met with Governor Charlie Crist and the heads of the Florida Department of Education and Department of Juvenile Justice to discuss school discipline reform at the state level. At that time, we recommended that the state zero tolerance law be overhauled. As a result of those meetings, the Department of Juvenile Justice sponsored a statewide “Zero Tolerance Summit” in August 2008, during which a taskforce was formed to draft new law.
- In April 2009, that new law was passed by the Florida legislature. This represents a significant victory for Advancement Project and the NAACP. The new law makes five important changes to the old law:
- It discourages schools from arresting students for minor offenses such as classroom disruption and fighting;
- It encourages schools to use alternatives to expulsion and referral to law enforcement such as restorative justice;
- It requires schools to take the particular circumstances of the student’s misconduct into account before issuing punishment;
- It requires every school district to give students the right to appeal disciplinary actions taken against them; and
- It responds to the harsh truth of racial disparities in discipline in Florida by stating that zero tolerance policies must apply equally to all races.
BALTIMORE, MD
- In spring 2007, at the request of the Open Society Institute-Baltimore and a Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPSS) school safety committee, Advancement Project served as consultants in revising the district’s student code of conduct. After analyzing school discipline data and relevant laws and policies for the committee, we helped draft a new policy that emphasized prevention measures and effective intervention that are designed to limit the use of out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, and school-based arrests.
- In just the first year, the number of out-of-school suspensions dropped by 26%
