City schools analysis shows police interaction disparities

Pittsburgh Public Schools officials said an analysis of police interactions with students in the district showed that citations and arrests of Black children remain disproportionate even as the overall numbers of those disciplinary measures have decreased across the school system over the past several years.

The finding was the result of a report the district commissioned last year amid heightened tensions over policing in schools following the killing of George Floyd by a former Minneapolis police officer.

District officials previewed the report Friday afternoon during a news conference and said the full report would be made available following a school board meeting next week.

Ted Dwyer, the district’s chief of data, research, evaluation and assessment, said about 75% of calls for police service involve only Black students, about 75% of incidents that lead to citations involve Black students, and about 80% of incidents leading to arrests involve Black students.

Black children make up slightly more than 50% of students in the district.

The district said the report, conducted by RMC Research, confirmed what third-party organizations have long suspected — that Black students are disproportionately impacted when police become involved in school discipline. The interactions involve both school and city police.

“That’s consistent with the information we received from our community groups and advocacy groups,” Mr. Dwyer said. “There’s confirmation in our data to what

other organizations have found.”

Calls for police service have decreased over the past five years from about 1,100 in 2014-15 to around 600 in 201920, a year that ended about three months early because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the number of service calls had trended downward after 2014-15.

Since the 2013-14 school year, about 40% of service calls have led to arrests and about 20% to 30% of calls have led to citations. The service calls that resulted in no action have increased from 33% in 2013-14 to 42% in 201920.

District officials said they will work to lower the number of service calls by holding conversations with administrators of schools that have a greater number of those calls, expand the efforts of the school system’s alcohol and drug diversion program, and provide additional training for school staff to limit calls.

The district also presented a separate review of its K-2 suspension ban for nonviolent offenses.

Since the ban was instituted in 2018, the review found that K-2 suspensions for nonviolent offenses decreased but were not entirely eliminated.

Tatia Prieto, founder of Prismatic Services, which conducted the review, said K-2 suspensions that were listed under nonviolent offenses after the ban was implemented were likely misreported. For example, she said, some of the suspensions may have been enforced for multiple offenses, but they were listed under one that the district deems as nonviolent.

“One of the things that was very clear in talking with the elementary principals and teachers who responded to the survey is out-of-school suspension is not the tool of choice,” she said. “It’s more a tool of last resort in a lot of ways, and they were clear it’s for violent incidents.”

The district has considered expanding the nonviolent suspension ban to fifth grade, but the review said some steps need to occur first.

The review recommended dedicating a physical space for in-school suspensions in all elementary schools, as some facilities have not designated an area. It also suggested the district assess the need for a training and data review, emphasize the need for progressive disciplinary practices and develop alternative responses when a student receives an out-of-school suspension more than three times.

The district said it plans to work toward those recommendations.