Room 220 Mission Statement

Studies have also found a correlation between exclusionary discipline and (1) increased school avoidance, (2) decreased academic engagement, (3) an increased rate of dropouts, (4) increased behavioral problems, and (5) increased involvement with the juvenile justice system. School administrators have the right to want to develop a safe climate for their students and teachers and remove threats from their schools. However, serious threats from students are rare. Nearly 60 percent of the suspensions and expulsions administered in HPS in 2009-2010 were administered for school policy violations—a category that includes things like insubordination, profanity, sleeping in class, and truancy—not serious safety concerns like violence against others or weapons.

In the article “School Suspensions: Pros, Cons, and Ways to Improve”, it says a con is that the students don’t receive the days class work and will miss the lessons during class. Hearing someone explain something confusing and complicated will help them remember the correct way. All they get is a written explanation that can get confusing and they will end up doing the work wrong because they couldn’t get the right explanation of what to do. Even though most students do keep up with their work when they get suspensions, others think that it’s like a vacation from school and they don’t do their work on time or don’t do it correctly. The students’ education shouldn’t be affected even if they did break the rules, their lessons and classes are too important to miss that much

Out of school suspensions (OSS) are often enforced with the assumption that students receiving the suspension are less likely to repeat the problem behavior in the future. However, this has been proven to be false. Suspending a student for engaging in a certain behavior does not in fact serve as a deterrent from the behavior but as a deterrent from attending school instead. In actuality, receiving just a single suspension can increase the probability of a student experiencing academic failure, school dropout, and involvement in the juvenile justice system. Knowing this, some educators still believe that for many students, suspension can serve as an effective lesson. One of the greatest concerns that educators and administrators face is the matter of classroom management. It is part of their job to ensure a safe, productive and supportive classroom allowing students to learn and grow to their greatest potential. Though there are several strategies gauged towards managing a classroom, the most severe offences often lead to either in or out of school suspension. Some of the largest concerns faced with out of school suspensions is that they are often ineptly applied, used unfairly against students of color and seemingly ineffective at producing better behavior. Also known as exclusionary discipline, the majority of offenses that led to OSS have not been centered around violence but instead emphasised issues of classroom insubordination and defiance. In some rather extreme cases

School data suggests that the decision to suspend or excel a student depends on several factors including prior history of the student, particulars of the situation, and the teacher’s ability to manager classroom behavior (Skiba, 2003). However observations of classroom behavior show that the majority of students removed from urban classrooms were not primarily due to dangerous or major infractions of disciplinary policies and usually they weren’t even the worst offenders.

As a major source of referrals to the juvenile justice system, eliminating the use of zero tolerance policies by public school administrators is a critical step in ameliorating detrimental effects on minority adolescents and in efforts to close the school-to-prison pipeline. Currently, research suggests zero tolerance policies are ineffective at increasing school safety and that suspending or expelling students puts them at higher risk for dropping out of school and committing delinquent acts [citation-Black]. Nonetheless, minor disciplinary problems should not involve law enforcement.

(a) With the growing amount of literature uncovering the racial disparities in school disciplinary practices, this study wanted to delve further and explore factors that contribute to the racial disparities of school suspensions specifically concerning Black students, and examined elementary age children and elementary teachers to perhaps determine a genesis of this discrepancy. The student’s overall level of behavior problems, characteristics of the classroom (i.e., overall level of disruption), and the teacher’s ethnicity were considered as potential factors that may contribute to the overrepresentation of Black students.

In my great middle school, Wildwood Middle School of Waunakee, Wisconsin, our goal is for students to grow into people who will make the world a better place. Sixth, seventh, and eighth graders are taught a wide variety of common core classes and extra exploratories to enrich children and help them grow. We believe in the principal character traits of S.H.A.R.K., which stands for Self-Control, Humility, Acceptance, Responsibility, and Kindness. Wildwood Middle School’s motto is,” Where Everyone Belongs”, as we believe everyone should be treated with kindness and respect. Our school sports team is the Wildwood Sharks and our mascot is Sammy Shark. We believe Wildwood is a great middle school because we provide a safe and fun learning environment

The following discussion of practice and policy related issues found within the article puritan to a “qualitative” study “conducted in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota metropolitan area from September 2009 to May 2012” (Gibson & Haight, 2013, p.264). The main objective of the study was to evaluate the “culturally nuanced” definitions and perceptions on out-of-school suspensions; In hopes of discovering new ways in which “schools and families can work together to decrease racial disparities in out-of-school suspensions” (Gibson & Haight, 2013, p. 263). Thirty participants were interviewed within their own homes through “in-depth, individual, and audiotaped interviews.” (Gibson & Haight, 2013, p. 263). In reviewing the study interviews, a few practice-related issues were discussed, concerning educators lack of understanding of cultural diversity among their students, as well as school personnel 's failure to fully listen to each individual 's concerns when addressing discipline issues.

Zero tolerance policies are the catalyst for the School-to-Prison pipeline. The problem with zero tolerance policies rely on several different factors. Even though, the vision for zero tolerance policies is clear in the sense that safety is a main priority, A ten year study of zero tolerance policies conducted by the American Psychological Association concluded that the use of these overly harsh policies "did not improve school safety." Since these policies are not increasing school safety it is a clear indicator that change in disciplinary methods is necessary. Additionally, these overly harsh policies create racial disparities mainly focused on minorities. The reason for these racial disparities particularly arise from implicit bias. Unfortunately, student of color and minorities are disportionately represented in suspensions, expulsions, and arrests. Exclusionary discipline principles disproportionately lead the youth, particularly minorities, from classrooms to court and prisons. Racial disparities within school’s disciplinary actions is clear when looking at discipline rates. The Civil Rights Data Collection, gathered by the US Department of Education, graphed suspension rates and disparities in a national test sample during 2012. Figure 1 portrays the ratio of white students that constitute for a little more than half of students enrolled in school while black and hispanic students constitute for less than

The second aspect is an examination of the suspension practices on different demographic sub groups (Townsend, 2000; Skiba, Arredondo, Gray, & Rausch, 2016; Yusuf, Irvine, & Bell, 2016). This had led to the belief and practice that the students and their families alone were affected by the impact of out of school suspensions. Conversely the attitudes and perspectives of the personal impact of involvement in the discipline process and specifically on the suspension aspect of school discipline on administrators (Hannigan, & Hannigan, 2016).

Black students begin receiving far more suspensions than white children beginning as early as preschool. Compared to white children, black preschool children were 3.6 times to receive an out-of-school suspension... Schools that have a predominantly black and Hispanic student population tend to have higher rates of discipline against students of

Over the past decade disciplinary issues in the schools have increased. Children are no longer showing respect to those in authority. This problem has caused students to not only decrease in their academic achievement but also decrease in their real world social development. African Americans are amongst one ethnicity group to experience bias. In the context of school discipline, race and gender stereotypes particularly function to criminalize African American youth and to reinforce cultural beliefs about perceived inherent behavioral deficiencies and African American cultural norms in need of “social correction” (George, 2014). African Americans are placed in the stereotypical norm of having discipline problems in the schools. Especially African American girls. In a 2014 national data report, African American girls accounted for 12% of all suspensions (George, 2014). With that being said, African American girls are suspended at least “six times the rate of white girls and more than any other group of girls and several groups of boys.” (George, 2014) This is a huge problem in our schools that needs to be addressed.

The public schools system acts as an early introduction into the criminal justice system not only through the enactment of out of school suspensions that contributes to the high dropout rates amongst inner-city children but also as an early labeling and socialization tactic through the need to have security officers and metal detectors. Through the suspension process teachers, adults and students alike associate the reasoning and purpose of the suspension to criminal behavior placing words such as offender, crime, and self-defense when incidents pertaining to black men occur, they uphold the rules of the school regardless of the reasoning behind the call for administrative assistance within instances of delinquency or emotional and behavioral challenges, and neglect to fix the problem of grouping all students specifically minorities as one (Gibson

On September 1, 2012, I walked into my fifth grade teacher’s classroom for the first time in my life. Mrs.Cullen was standing in the front of the door with open arms ready to welcome her new fifth grade students. As I made my way to my desk and sat down next to Charlie Schutt and Quin Timmerman, I got the feeling that middle school would be a time of talking to some of my best friends and cruising through classes. As the school year progressed, and classroom seats changed, my thought of how Middle school would be changed as well. On the first day Mrs.Cullen explained our schedule, Homework detentions, and demerits. After about fifty questions, she sent us off to our first class, and the first step of our Middle School journey. The fifth grade

Racial disparities in school discipline have garnered recent attention in national reports issued by the U.S. Department of Education and Justice (U.S. Department of Education, 2014; Gregory, Hafen, Ruzek, Mikami, Allen, & Pianta, 2016). Suspension rates Black students are two to three times higher than those from other racial and ethnic groups. Various research has documented that Black students remain overrepresented in school discipline sanctions after accounting for their achievement, socioeconomic status, and teacher- and self-reported behavior (Gregory et al, 2016). There is a difference as to the reasons why White students are sent to the office versus Black students. Black students are sent to the office for subjective reasons such as “disrespect” and “perceived threat”, while White students are more than likely to be referred for more objective reasons including, smoking, vandalism, and leaving school without permission. (Gregory, et al, 2016). African Americans and especially African American boys, are more likely to be disciplined and often receive more out-of-school suspensions and expulsions than white students (Todd Rudd, 2014). Suspending students is taking away time from them being in the classroom. Students who receive suspensions, lose instructional time, fall behind on course work, become discouraged, and ultimately drop out…recent research has shown each suspension a student receives can decrease their odds for high graduation by any