New Haven Independent

According to figures provided by the New Haven Public Schools, the number of out of school suspensions fell by 1,228 between the 2006-07 school year and 2007-08, which is an approximate decline from 17 percent to 15 percent of school enrollment.

According to Superintendent Reginald Mayo (at left in photo), the use of out-of-school suspensions is continuing to decrease in the current school year.

“I believe that for the first two marking periods this year, we are also down by 400, which is a very good development,” said Mayo earlier this week.

The news came as Gov M. Jodi Rell moves to delay in implementing a 2007 law limiting the use of out-of-school suspensions to serious offenses.

In testimony before the General Assembly’s education committee on Monday, Connecticut Voices for Children, a children’s advocacy organization and think tank, urged the law to be implemented as scheduled this summer.

The advocates cited the governor’s own support for removing kids from school only for the most exceptional circumstances: in a 2007 statement in support of the bill, Governor Rell said, “Keeping children out of school is a direct line to delinquent behavior.”

A main reason for a second delay in implementation is the cost of implementing in-school or other alternatives to suspension. This article in the Courant cites several superintendents at Tuesday’s hearing characterizing the law as an unaffordable unfunded mandate, and an unwise move during an economic crisis.

Connecticut Voices urged passage despite the current fiscal woes. In a release on Monday, the group warned of a statewide increase in the use of suspensions by 7 percent. Part of their testimony and argument for expeditious passage also cited alarming increases in the use of suspension, especially in the schools of New Haven, Hartford, and Bridgeport.

However, with apologies, these figures were withdrawn on Tuesday as having been miscalculated from statistics provided by the State Department of Education.

A spokesman for Connecticut Voices for Children, Michael Sullivan, said that until they could re-examine the numbers, which appeared to have confused unique with duplicate or multiple incidents involving a same child suspension, individual districts’ figures are more accurate.

According to the city school system, duplicate suspensions, that is those involving the same student, also dropped in the measured period from 3,454 to 3,116.

Michael Sullivan, however, added that his organization’s stood by the statewide increase and the cogency of their argument over the past two years for the implementation of other procedures, such as in-school suspension, and, preferably disciplinary alternatives such as community service.

When kids are tossed out of school for days and even weeks, they fall further behind in their academic work, and a vicious cycle is made more so. In New Haven, recent steps have been taken to assure that suspended kids receive a homework plan, and that it is supervised.

According to Connecticut Voices’ release, statewide most suspensions (58 percent) in 2007-2008 were for what was termed school policy violations: insubordination (25 percent), attendance infractions (15 percent), and classroom disruption (11 percent).

Of the 42 percent of suspensions for serious disciplinary violations, the leading reasons were fighting/battery (15 percent) and physical or verbal confrontation including “unbecoming contact” (12 percent).

Teach Our Children, a New Haven grassroots advocacy group for kids in the NHPS, also testified late Monday night. Fashioning and disseminating among parents a coherent and consistent disciplinary policy for the schools has been one of the issues of contention between TOC and the Board of Ed; in recent months, through regular meetings, progress has been announced in this and other regards.

Camelle Scott (at right in photo), one of TOC’s organizers, said that two of its parent leaders, Alberto Nieves and Nancy Carranza testified in Hartford late Monday to the importance of implementing the in-school suspension law in July as planned.

Despite the apparent drop in suspensions in the NHPS, Scott wrote in an email, “Anecdotal evidence still points to a suspension rate that is still way too high. Whether it has gone up or down is hard to say without accurate statistics.”

Scott said TOC parents are also troubled by the reasons behind the suspensions.

“What we are seeing,” Scott said, “is suspension for non-violent, non-weapon related, and non-sexual violations of school policy, and that’s why we are waiting for a district code of conduct that distinguishes between minor and major insubordination.”

That policy appears in process, per recent meetings between TOC and the school board, regardless of the outcome in Hartford.

The governor stands by delaying implementation of the law, according to State Department of Education spokesperson Thomas Murphy. As of Tuesday, no action had been taken on the pertinent bill, SB 830.