PPS will review policy on elementary suspensions
Parent advocates have called for an immediate end to out-of-school suspensions for the youngest learners in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. The school system and teacher’s union want another year to make sure teachers have the classroom support they need to make it a reality.
A last-minute proposal Wednesday tried but failed to split the difference.
District 3 board member Tom Sumpter Wednesday evening suggested the district convene a “working group” that would study the topic and recommend supports teachers would need if the district banned suspensions for kindergarteners, first-graders and secondgraders accused of nonviolent offenses.
But it also proposed a moratorium beginning Jan. 1 — with a K-5 ban to start in the 2018-19 school year. Those dates drew criticism from several board members, who disapproved of a firm deadline, in part because the committee isn’t set to reveal its recommendations until November.
“This district has had a habit of putting things into place and thinking about them later,” said District 8’s Kevin Carter, who made a motion to amend the resolution to remove the time elements.
The board unanimously approved his change. The committee will begin its work July 15 and will include at least one administrator, principal, teacher, student, parent and board member.
Mr. Sumpter had an ally in District 6’s Moira Kaleida, who said she was “scared to put this off any longer.”
“The systemic racism and inequities in this district have been persistent and disgusting for far too long. ... This is a little step that we can take that can make a big difference in some kid’s life.”
Earlier in the evening, the school board approved a revised student code of conduct, which says teachers should be “discouraged” from suspending K-2 students. The district’s proposed moratorium on the practice isn’t expected to start until the 2018-19 school year, a move supported by the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers.
“Every teacher wants every student in their seat every day, but we need to have the supports to make that happen because one student, or several, can take away from the learning time,” said Nina Esposito-Visgitis, president of the union representing the district’s 3,000 teachers, paraprofessionals and clerical-technical workers.
The vote comes after over 60 advocates rallied in front of the district administration building in Oakland on Monday urging the district to adopt a policy that would eliminate K-5 suspensions.
According to a recent report by advocacy groups Education Rights Network and One Pennsylvania, K-5 students in PPS schools missed 3,160 days of school because of out-of-school suspensions in the 2015-2016 school year. Of those, 65 percent were for “disruption of school,” and more than half were for “minor, non-violent offenses.”
Students of color in grades K-5 were suspended four times as often as white students, and students with disabilities, especially those of color, were much more likely to be sent home.
A wide-ranging January study by the Council of the Great City Schools recommended the district ditch K-2 suspensions for violations that don’t affect student safety.
Suspensions overall have decreased in PPS, according to the district, and Superintendent Anthony Hamlet said he’s been reviewing that data at weekly cabinet meetings.
The revised code of conduct also expands from three to four the levels of student misconduct and includes a grid breaking down the possible consequences for each infraction. Assistant Superintendent for Student Services Dara Ware Allen said those changes were a direct result of a series of community meetings this spring about the coming changes to the code of conduct.
“We had feedback that it was confusing” before the changes, she said.
The revised code also puts the very serious offenses — assault on a school employee or student, arson, drug or alcohol possession and having a weapon — in their own category as “level four” infractions and moves class disruption to a “level one” and thus notsubject to suspension.