Alright – so, this report was done in 2013 and over five years later, we are still struggling with this. Our children are still being suspended and expelled disproportionately.
Here are the report’s recommendations:
MMEP Solutions Not Suspensions’ Discipline
Policy Reform Recommendations
Through a community collaborative process, MMEP along with:
community leaders, youth advocates, parents, and students came
together as a team to discuss issues of school discipline and develop
research-based, data-driven discipline policy reform recommendations
that reflect the wants, needs, and concerns of families and students.
The following are recommendations for discipline policy reform for
Minnesota school districts:
1. School discipline policies should align with a restorative framework, encourage models of positive behavior, and focus on alternative practices in all schools. Within discipline policies, there must be
clear restrictions and guidelines on the use of disciplinary responses to
misbehavior that include necessitated use of intervention practices for
minor misconduct prior to any exclusionary response. Minor misconduct should be regarded as any behavior that does not MANDATE
exclusionary responses (assault, weapons, and terroristic threats). For
all other conduct, appropriate interventions addressing the specific issue
should be utilized.
2. There needs to be a concerted, intentional process developed to
gather and understand the holistic context in which incidents of
misbehavior occur prior to any reactive response. Examples of this
may include asking student witnesses their perspective on the incident
or reviewing past interactions between student and teacher or student.
3. The role and responsibility of law enforcement in schools need to
be clarified through a memorandum of understanding that limits
the use of school-based arrests and ticketing to violent, serious
offenses that unmistakably threaten and endanger the safety of
staff and students. Law enforcement should commit to supporting and
abiding by a restorative framework that encourages addressing student
misconduct with school intervention practices. Students and community
voices should be included in the creation of this memorandum of
understanding. Because restorative practices have proven to achieve the
desired outcomes courts and county attorneys are presumably looking
for, the use of restorative practices in schools should also be considered
as an alternative to court involvement for incidences where law enforcement is called for.
MMEP and the MMEP Solutions Not Suspensions campaign are committed to providing support to both school
districts and communities in the process of reforming discipline policies and practices to ensure the empowerment,
engagement, and equitable treatment of students of color. Through continued research and community
collaboration, we are identifying interventions and alternatives that can effectively close the discipline gap in
Minnesota schools, and enhance the academic achievement and elevate the inherent dignity of all of our students.
4. Create a public reporting system for discipline data that is disaggregated by misbehavior type, age, gender, grade, race/ethnicity,
school, teacher/staff, date of the incident, and the response taken. This
data should be used by schools and districts: to track program success,
identify areas of improvement, identify trends in teacher/staff referrals,
and trends in misbehavior to better tailor alternative programming.
Parents should also have access to this data pertaining to their individual
student(s) in order to fully engage in preventing further misbehavior or
escalation. Additionally, this type of data collection, paired with data
collection on educational achievement measures would help to evaluate
the impact alternative disciplinary interventions are having and which
are most influential in improving engagement and achievement.
5. Eliminate the option for out-of-school suspension/expulsion of
any kindergarteners. Pushing students out during their introductory
year to education and the fragile time period of psychological development is damaging to student engagement. All incidents of misbehavior,
especially for our youngest learners, should be understood as learning
opportunities and addressed accordingly.
6. Partner with parents, students and community organizations in
the development of alternative interventions specifically designed
and proven to address different types of misbehavior. ie. Drug counseling for drug possession/use, Not only will these partnerships provide
for productive interventions to address the root causes of misbehavior,
but also the opportunity for stronger collaboration and trust between
community partners and schools.
7. Mandatory cultural competence and anti-racism professional
development training is necessary for teachers and staff to be
well-educated and aware of situations and circumstances students
are facing inside and outside of school, as well as an examination
and understanding of subconscious biases or underlying assumptions they may hold, prior to responding to student misconduct.
We measure students through MCA II testing and other forms of
assessments but where are the assessments for the teachers that are
measurable and show them where they are in regards to their cultural
competence or biases?
Full link to the report can be found here.
Please vote wisely as voting for the same people that hire the same teachers, principals, administrators, commissioners and expecting different results is insane and has not worked. Policies that allow such bias suspensions come from people who have been hired by politicians we voted for. We need to learn to connect our votes to their policies or lack thereof.
Idil – Somali Autism Mom