When the school system rolled out the latest draft of its school suspension policy this week, it came with collaboration — and praise — from a parent advocacy group that had pressed for reform.
Angela Watley (at left in photo with her Truman School son Marcus) and Camelle Scott (at right in photo), of Teach Our Children (TOC) thanked top school officials as they presented draft revisions of the school system’s Unified Code of Conduct to the school board Monday evening.
On sensitive matters as to what offenses constitute a basis for suspension, and whether there’s consistency in application of rules from school to school, the grassroots parents’ advocacy organization has often been at loggerheads with the Board of Ed.
It has also been deeply concerned about the relationship of suspension to criminality, or what has been termed the school to prison pipeline.
At Monday night’s Board of Ed Meeting, both parties struck a new note. Schools Superintendent Reginald Mayo exchanged expressions of gratitude and mutual respect with a half-dozen TOC members. TOC had a hand in the process: Its members met with school officials Friday night to work on last-minute revisions of the policy. Although no formal vote was taken — the school board members had not had sufficient time to study the document — it was clear a meeting of minds had been reached on key issues.
Click here for a copy of the draft revision of the code. And click here for TOC’s letter of appreciation to Mayo.
A New Code
The code enumerates rights and responsibilities of students, teachers, and parents in terms of conduct. Then it lists four categories of offenses from the minor such as tardiness and making noise in class to the most serious like bringing weapons to school, which mandates immediate police involvement.
Among the critical changes are alternative discipline suggestions for offenses in order to regulate and reduce out-of-school suspensions. These include, for example, peer mediation, referral to restorative justice organizations in town, and required community service.
In the case of serious offenses — defined as both disruptive and endangering — the revisions lay out criteria that may result in a lesser punishment. The revisions detail factors principals should take into account before deciding on a punishment, including: developmental age of the child, risk of lost instruction, behavioral supports being provided, and communication and cultural misunderstandings.
This is in keeping, said Eric Yuhas (pictured), with a state law passed last year; the governor has deferred implementation for budgetary reasons. The law promotes in-school suspension or alternative strategies. Kicking kids out even for short periods, everyone agrees, provides few benefits.
Yuhas, the assistant principal at the Sound School, headed the revising committee. He was at pains to point out that while the code leaves principals with final judgment and with ability to use out of school suspension, the public schools’ policy is in keeping with the spirit of the state statute to reduce suspensions.
Although a Connecticut Voices For Children report continues to rank New Haven in the top of state districts in the number of out-of-school suspensions, out-of-school suspensions in city public schools dropped from 17 to 15 percent of enrollment between 2007 and 2008, according to the superintendent’s office. They are also down by 400 in the first several marking periods of this year, according to Mayo.
Yuhas, who described his younger self as a painfully obedient student, headed a 20-member committee that has been working on the revisions since October 2008.
On the committee were 18 administrators and two teachers. Although no parents were sitting members of the committee, input from Teach Our Children members was a regular feature, Yuhas said, of the deliberations.
The revisers were motivated by the new state law’s requirements to offer alternatives to out of school suspension, but also by the activities of TOC, whose letter to Mayo in the spring called attention to many parents’ unhappiness with and confusion at the discipline policy from school to school.
At Monday’s meeting, TOCs Watley publicly read her letter to Mayo in which she expressed particular appreciation that the board had agreed to make school-by-school documentation on all disciplinary actions available in printed form for all parents.
Other TOC recommendations accepted by the board included changing language from “expected” to “required” in the matter of notifying parents in the two more minor categories of offenses.
Yuhas said the code was a “living document,” with the door open for parents, teachers, and administrators to refine it in the coming year.
It’s likely the board will vote on the document at next month’s meting and that the code, along with reviewing committee, and training for administrators in its implementation, will be in place for next school year.
Watley said they were very pleased with the outcome and the cooperation of Mayo and the board. However, they wanted to be sure the code would have a Spanish translation too when it will be given in September to each child at orientation.
Allan---Thank-you very much for the article, which I think fitly captures the great response to the revised Code of Conduct at the board meeting.
There is one aspect of my quoted comments I'd like to highlight and correct a potential misperception:
"Although no parents were sitting members of the committee, input from Teach Our Children members was a regular feature, Yuhas said, of the deliberations."
I expressed myself poorly here, and my comments could give the impression that members of TOC were actively involved in the revision process, which they were not. I would expect that they might take umbrage at such an assertion.
What happened was this: TOC wrote a letter one year ago in response to the original draft of the code. The letter had 24 questions and recommendations regarding the draft. When the committee began meeting in the fall, one of our first items of business was to read and discuss the TOC letter. Many of the questions and concerns mirrored some of our own, and there were also some things that we had not considered at all up to that point. While we did not run down the list of TOC's questions during the revision process, they were always prominent in our thinking as we did our work. So it was gratifying that after releasing the revised draft to TOC, the questions they gave us in preparation for our meeting last Friday had been boiled down to five, which formed the agenda for that meeting. The superintendent's and TOC's mutual work on the answers to those five questions comprised the final, last minute revisions to the code.
So when I said TOC's feedback was a "regular feature" I was referring to the ongoing role their original letter had in our thinking during the revision process, not active participation in the process by TOC.
Sorry for the confusion, and again, thanks for the article!
Eric Yuhas
Assistant Principal
The Sound School