Suspicious numbers not so suspicious
I guess I qualify as what Sara calls an "old timer" because I do remember why the suspension rate went down abruptly in the city during the 2004-2005 school year.
The city school system was trying to avoid having its schools labeled "presistently dangerous" under No Child Left Behind. Principals and teachers told us that year that the city school administration had warned them to stop suspending so many students because they feared too many schools would receive the designation the following year.
The problem was that teachers weren't given any training or help in reducing misbehavior in the classroom. So teachers reported that when students misbehaved and were sent to the office, nothing happened. Students weren't being suspended, even for serious infractions, and so began an escalation of violence in the schools.
Some readers may remember a rash of fires in high schools and middle schools as well as an increase in fights that year. Fire engines began parking in front of some schools, like Walbrook High School, for most of the school day. Eventually, the violence subsided, but schools in the city did get the dangerous label.
Categories: Baltimore City, NCLB, School Safety (Or Lack Thereof)
Baltimoresun.com's 
Comments
Thank you, Liz. I should have known that 04-05 was the first year of the persistently dangerous program.
So my question to current teachers is: Is the same thing happening now (or did it ever stop)? Dr. Alonso is discouraging suspensions for minor offenses, but one commenter today said principals are taking that to stop suspensions altogether.
Posted by: Sara Neufeld | November 28, 2007 7:15 PM
My roomate teaches at Walbrook and even before I read this blog entry he told me that there have been fires in the bathroom for three straight days. Of course no one is evacuated from the building, just another day at school. Furthermore he's had students get into serious fights and sent to the principal, only to be returned to class later that same day.
It is difficult to punish students when consequences are not enforced by their superiors. Furthermore, mechanisms are in place to discourage teachers from failing students who are indeed failing.
I'm not sure how informative suspension numbers can be when suspensions aren't uniformly enforced across different schools.
Posted by: Corey | November 29, 2007 3:36 PM
This is one of the drawbacks of No Child Left Behind; it's punitive in nature. When schools aren't succeeding, they wind up getting penalized, rather than getting the support that they clearly need. As a result we went though this period of "no suspensions" to avoid the Persistently Dangerous label.
At a recent principals' meeting I attended, they were told once again that Dr. Alonso isn't saying "Don't suspend students", but to use some discretion and ensure that the punishment fits the crime, as the saying goes. In addition, there will be severe penalties for principals who allow a dangerous situation to persist and fail to suspend a student simply to avoid staying off Alonso's radar.
Posted by: Claude | November 30, 2007 1:08 PM
Claude, good point, I'm glad you're not also drinking the kool-aid. Did anyone notice the editorial in Thursday's edition of the Sun about Alonso's suspension policy? It's a ringing endorsement--I would only wish people would start visiting schools and notice the environment, especially the attitude of the students. It reminds me to an extent of Senator McCain's wonderful trip to market in Iraq last summer--some people have lost touch with reality!
Posted by: concernedcitizen | November 30, 2007 9:23 PM