Austin school district will limit disciplinary classroom removals to address racial disparities
A school district in Austin, Texas, will limit its disciplinary classroom removals of students after a study revealed that black students in the district were more likely to be removed from class than their white peers.
Austin Independent School District will limit the length of suspensions, and decisions on whether to send students to disciplinary campuses will be moved up the district's chain of command, the district said Wednesday in a statement.
"As students are removed from class, they miss learning opportunities," said Chief of Schools Anthony Mays. "Those pieces, the building blocks that need to be there for learning to take place, they aren’t there."
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Black students were five times more likely to be disciplined than white students, according to a report the district compiled. For the purpose of the report, disciplinary actions included expulsions, suspensions, and placement at a disciplinary alternative learning campus.
The five schools in the district with the highest rates of discipline were middle schools, and among them, 25.4% of black students had received disciplinary action as opposed to 5.9% of white students, the report found.
In-home suspensions will be limited to two days, KXAN reported Friday.
Disciplinary removals will no longer be at the discretion of the principal, the district said Wednesday in a statement. Associate superintendents will consider such measures only after all other possible behavioral interventions have been considered.
The district also plans to provide more support to teachers to help them solve problems within the classroom.
"What we’ve learned in a lot of instances is that our system lacks capacity to give teachers the tools to be able to successfully engage students from bell-to-bell, or to deal with student discipline issues that may come up in the classroom," Mays said.
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"We have to be real with ourselves in terms of what the numbers say," he added. "The data is telling us that we may not be as inclusive as we say we are, so how do we make sure that what we’re sharing in terms of the perception of Austin is aligned with the outcomes in Austin for all students?"
The Washington Examiner reached out to AISD for additional information but did not immediately receive a response.
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Tags: News, Austin, Race and Diversity, Texas, Education
Original Author: Haley Victory Smith
Original Location: Austin school district will limit disciplinary classroom removals to address racial disparities
