nothin Schools Seek The Right Punishment | New Haven Independent

Schools Seek The Right Punishment

Melissa Bailey Photo

Second of two parts.
BALTIMORE — When two kids get into a fight in a New Haven school, what’s the punishment? Baltimore school officials asked.

Nine days out-of-school suspension,” replied Jaime Ramos, an assistant principal at Wilbur Cross High School.

Oh my God,” murmured a Baltimore principal.

They’re not playing,” whispered another voice.

The exchange took place toward the end of a meeting of a high-powered powwow called Safety Stat,” during which top Baltimore school supervisors get together to discuss discipline. The district invited five New Haven visitors inside as part of a recent two-day field trip to observe reforms underway in the Charm City’s schools. (Read an earlier story about the visit here.)

New Haven school reform czar Garth Harries took the guest-of-honor seat in the middle of the room as 30 top supervisors and two principals sat around a large U of tables, looking in at two projectors showing discipline stats. Walking into the meeting, which was in progress, felt like stepping into a Comstat meeting in The Wire.

Two projectors flashed the latest discipline data: As of Dec. 23, there were 4,279 suspensions in the Baltimore City Schools.

During the three days before Christmas break, Dec. 21 to 23, there were 56 suspensions due to fighting or physical attacks. One kid was suspended for arson. Five were suspended for physical attack on staff.” Of the 152 suspensions in those three days, 32 percent were for special ed students.

Jonathan Brice (pictured), executive director of student support and safety, led a rapid-fire analysis of the latest stats. Why such a high percentage of special education students? Who’s following up on interventions for the repeat offenders?

Brice went through school-by-school data, showing those that showed a spike or a drop in suspensions.

He noted two zeros next to the Rising Star school for kids who are overage and under-credited. The school reported no suspensions in the past four weeks, and only three to date.

Do I believe that?” Brice asked.

If I see a zero, what am I thinking?” Brice asked, his voice booming out across the room. Someone might be playing games” with the numbers.

Let’s go visit,” Brice said. He directed a team of central office staff to do so.

Then he turned to two principals in the room. As part of the meetings, which take place every Friday in the Board of Education headquarters, principals present safety issues and get feedback on how to proceed. Up for examination Friday: Reach Middle/High School and Holabird Elementary.

Reach Principal Michael Frederick, whose school serves 288 kids in grades 6 to 12, reported suspending no students Dec. 21 – 23. To date, his school had suspended 30 students, or about 6 percent of the student body. Some other similarly sized schools posted rates as high as 13 to 23 percent.

Frederick told the room he avoids harsher discipline at times. He recounted a recent fight between two girls in the school gym. He said the girls were best friends. He sat them both down in a room after they fought. They talked through the problem. By the end of the conversation, he could tell the fight was over. The girls would continue being friends.

How would a similar situation work in New Haven? Brice asked his visitors.

Ramos replied that a fight in school is an automatic nine-day out-of-school suspension.

Oh my God,” Frederick whispered. It’s not a deterrent.”

While current New Haven numbers were not available by press time, Ramos said Cross is experiencing high data” in discipline.

Eight students were suspended, and eight were arrested, during a recent fight in the school cafeteria. Last year, students erupted in outrage after the school suspended 150 kids for carrying cell phones in school.

Over at Hillhouse High, suspensions are down compared to last year, but are rising month-by-month, reported dean of students Tom Fleming. The school issued eight suspensions in September, 26 in October, 47 in November, and 57 in December, he reported.

Most of the fights happen amid a crowd of kids, he said. A fight in the cafeteria calls for a 10-day out-of-school suspension and recommended expulsion, Fleming said.

Jaime Ramos, assistant principal at Wilbur Cross.

Fleming and Ramos agreed that fights in the cafeteria need to be taken seriously, because they can create near-riot situations, with so many people in a large room. (Click here to read New Haven’s code of conduct.)

In the 2006-07 school year, New Haven suspended 17 percent of its nearly 20,000 students, according to a 2008 report by CT Voices for Children. New Haven ranked among the top five cities that suspended the most kids statewide.

The following year, the district suspended 2,999 students, or 15 percent of the population, according to data provided by the state. Responding to what he called a serious spike in discipline,” schools Superintendent Reginald Mayo dispatched behavioral therapists to help kids before problems escalate. The district has also used mediation in some circumstances.

Suspensions in Baltimore have fallen over the past three years under the tenure of schools CEO Andres Alonso. There were 9,712 suspensions in 2009-10, a 42 percent drop over 2006-07, according to school officials.

Alonso (pictured) said the drop comes due to creating alternatives to suspension, revising the code of conduct, sending mental health counselors to 92 schools, and bullying and gang awareness programs.

He said when he took office, any suspension of greater than 10 days needed higher approval. He tightened the requirement to five days. And he went about revising the district’s code of conduct, which appears to be more flexible than New Haven’s, visitors concluded.

Alonso said at first, there was pushback against revising the disciplinary code — pushback with an old Testament tone.” There was somewhat of a civil war” between proponents and detractors of out-of-school suspensions.

The district instead started implementing redirection rooms” where conflicts could be resolved without leading to suspension.

Alonso said he learned the lesson from his days as a teacher of emotionally disturbed kids in Newark — when a problem occurs, you don’t have the kid leave.” He said he would settle the problem right on the spot, even if it meant the rest of the class left the room.

In general, kids are safer in school, Alonso argued. Over winter break, four Baltimore public school students were killed. He said once the schools started doling out fewer suspensions, attendance rates went up.

Once we signal to them that it’s OK to take time off,” then they’re more likely to skip more school, he reasoned.

Some offenses, including violence against a student or staff, still require mandatory out-of-school suspensions, Brice said.

In New Haven, kids who are sent away on out-of-school suspension are sent home and asked to keep up with work packets on their own.

Baltimore used to work that way, too, said Brice: Kids who got 45-day suspensions were given homework that oftentimes neither the student nor the parents could complete on their own.

Students got work packets, Brice said. The district said, We’ll see you in 45 days.” Many of those kids ended up falling behind and didn’t return to school.

We were feeding our own dropout problem,” Brice said.

So the district created special supports for just for kids who get suspended for 45 days or more. Instead of going home, these kids go to Success Academy.

The school, which opened in September 2009, now has about 69 students in grades 9 to 12. It sits in office space at the Board of Education building right under Alonso’s watch. Kids work independently or in groups on subjects they need to catch up on, usually English and math.

In three years, the school has expelled three kids, according to its principal, Kevin Brooks. Kids stay there anywhere from 45 days to 1 year.

It keeps some kids who would have walked away because the system was untenable,” Brice said.

On the way out, Garth Harries grabbed a copy of Baltimore’s discipline code and compared notes with Brice.

Harries called Brice’s Stats meeting a compelling cross-functional exercise” — one New Haven could start doing more of, now that it has new codes for discipline that create more detailed data.

Brice weighed in on New Haven’s policy for suspending kids who fight. The conduct code needs enough flexibility to keep students in the school, he said. Once our kids know that if they fight, it’s an automatic suspension — they’re gone.”

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