School suspensions drop, but remain uneven

Efforts to reduce school suspensions have scored significant successes across the state, but they have failed so far to solve one key problem: Minnesota schools still treat black students more harshly than whites.

Since 2010, suspensions have decreased by 20 percent, with larger declines in suspensions for some students of color. But data released Thursday show that black students are still seven times more likely to be suspended than white students.

Education officials believe they may have the answer to fix that gap. They think the best way to reduce the disparities in suspensions is to add more schools to the program that seems to be doing the most good.

Back in 2005, the Minnesota Department of Education began working with a few schools on a program called Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports. Today, 488 schools use it.

The program trains personnel to think differently before they suspend a student for bad behavior, like talking back to teachers. The main goal, said State Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius, is to keep students in class where they can continue learning.

"This is about setting expectations for children so that they know exactly how to be respectful," she said. "It's a great character-building program for children and it builds great classroom cultures where kids can just focus on their learning."

Cassellius met with a group of school administrators Thursday in Bloomington to discuss the latest statewide data on suspensions.

Suspensions had declined the most for black and Latino students — by 26 percent for blacks and by 27 percent for Latinos. Suspensions of white students were down by 21 percent.

Cassellius said there had been fewer suspensions in part because the state program trains teachers to de-escalate many of the situations they encounter in class, instead of automatically sending students to the principal.

And when students do end up in their office, principals are encouraged to come up with alternatives to suspension. Those alternatives might include time with a counselor to get at the root problem behind a student's behavior.

That's a better approach than sending a student home, said Charlie Eisenreich, the principal of Apollo High School in St. Cloud.

"We now know that that doesn't work," he said. "It's not successful for students and ultimately it's not successful for the classroom teachers, either, because they're re-teaching or spending time getting this particular student caught back up."

Despite the lower rates among some groups of students, others experienced little change. The suspension rate for Native American students has declined only slightly since 2010. And the disparity in suspensions between white students and black students is still significant.

Jamil Payton, an assistant principal at North View Junior High in the Osseo district, said the continuing disparity shows that administrators need to continue exploring the reasons students are suspended and find ways to avoid kicking them out of school.

"It's not going to change overnight," he said. "But as long as we're moving forward and you're continuing to see progress, we'll start to see the gap close."

Teachers across the state support efforts to reduce out-of-school suspensions, said Denise Specht, president of the state teachers union Education Minnesota. But in a statement released Thursday, she also said the state needs to give schools more funding to pay for support staff like counselors to make sure the program works.

Gov. Mark Dayton is asking lawmakers for $4.7 million this session to expand the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports program to 600 additional schools.