Kids’ behavior is better, chief says
Some Columbus City Schools are not expelling or suspending students as often, turning instead to alternatives that teach kids coping skills. District officials say the move is working, keeping children in the classroom.
Superintendent Dan Good rattled off discipline statistics during Tuesday night’s Columbus Board of Education meeting. He said even the least serious type of student misbehavior — classroom disruptions and profanity — is down by 20 percent districtwide this year.
Out-of-school suspensions and expulsions, which are the most serious disciplinary measures, are down by about 35 percent this school year compared with the same time period in the past two school years, Good said. That decline breaks down to a 48 percent drop in the district’s middle schools, 39 percent in elementary schools and 21 percent in high schools.
Among the greatest successes he cited were Linden-McKinley STEM Academy, with a 57 percent drop; Buckeye Middle School, down 61 percent; Champion Middle and Highland Elementary schools, both down 81 percent; and Hamilton STEM, down 89 percent.
“Our most successful buildings are taking true multidisciplinary and varied approaches, such as trauma-informed practices or combining those practices with restorative justice,” Good said.
Restorative justice refers to dealing with an offense by teaching children to talk it through and seek solutions, instead of going straight to punishment.
The trauma in “traumainformed” refers to the stresses that can come with growing up in high-poverty households, including an inconsistent food supply, having a parent out of work or witnessing violence in the community. Research has indicated that adverse childhood experiences change the way children’s brains develop, putting them in a constant state of alertness for danger.
Trauma-informed
— Peggy Lehner, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee
practices are happening in 36 of the district’s 110 schools, including Linden-McKinley, Champion, Highland and Hamilton. Restorative justice is happening at 17, including Buckeye Middle School. Eight schools are combining the two techniques, said district spokesman Scott Varner.
He said the drop can be attributed in part to improved student behavior, but also a realization that suspensions and expulsions aren’t an ideal solution.
“Alternative in-school settings are proving to be much better than dismissing a student and risking losing them to the streets,” Varner said by email.
Knowing where their students are coming from, teachers and counselors take steps to set a calming tone in the building, going so far as choosing soothing paint colors for the walls. The staff also can teach regulating behaviors, such as fidgeting or tapping out a rhythm, to calm the brain and put it in the zone to learn.
In February, The Dispatch profiled changes taking place in Ohio Avenue, Avondale and Highland Elementary schools after adopting trauma-informed practices. Staff members raved about how much calmer things are in their halls and classrooms.
“It has made my life easier,” Ohio Avenue Principal Olympia Della Flora said then. “Once the teachers started to realize that it was working, it lowered their stress. They were all on board.”
According to data kept by the Ohio Department of Education, the rate of all disciplinary actions within the Columbus City Schools for the 2016-17 school year was steady with a decade earlier, at 72.5 occurrences per 100 students. But the rate of expulsions fell from 1 per every 100 students in 2006-07, to 0.4 expulsions per 100 students in 2016-17. Out-of-school suspensions dropped from 57.1 suspensions per 100 students in 2006-07, to 48 suspensions per 100 students in 2016-17. One student can be suspended multiple times.
In recent years, the use of expulsions and suspensions in schools, especially among the youngest children, has attracted scrutiny at the state and national levels. Ohio schools suspended 34,000 students in kindergarten through third grade last school year.
In response to that revelation, state Sens. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, Gayle Manning, R-North Ridgeville, and Cecil Thomas, D-Cincinnati, last month proposed legislation that would phase in a ban of all out-of-school suspensions among children younger than fourth grade, unless the transgression included threats or violence, drugs or real weapons.
“We would never consider punishing a child because they didn’t know how to count or identify their colors,” said Lehner, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee. “But we need to recognize the lack of social and emotional skills is something we should be correcting, not punishing.”