Suspensions at S.D. Schools On the Rise : Education: Crackdown on unruly students hits junior highs, minority students hardest, district report shows.

Mann Middle School Principal Julie Elliott knows that suspension rates have skyrocketed at her campus and at those of her colleagues in San Diego during the last three years.

Elliott knows the district’s suspension rates for minority students, especially for black and Latino teen-age males, are up to 3 1/2 times higher than those for whites and Asians. At her East San Diego school alone, 91 out of every 100 African-American males were suspended during the 1990-91 academic year, contrasted with 37 out of 100 students overall.

Even though she keeps close track of the statistics herself, Elliott gets them as well from the central office, which keeps pressure on schools to reduce minority suspension numbers.

Elliott’s teachers are trying every program and idea available, aided by a host of special grants, to lower suspension numbers at their school. The efforts range from special mentors for black males, to in-school detention in lieu of sending children home, to changing the way teachers teach to compensate for students with high energy levels.

But she and her colleagues also insist on safe campuses where teachers and students do not feel threatened in their own classrooms or in the halls.

And therein lies a major dilemma for district principals: how to crack down on increasing violence and disruption to protect academic prospects for all students, while at the same time avoiding a pattern that raises questions of racial unfairness.

“Do I know I suspend more Hispanic and black males? Yes,” said Barbara Coates, principal at Kroc Junior High in Clairemont. Kroc suspended 43 out of every 100 black males and 75 out of every 100 Latino males last year. “Do I know that we should be more conscious of this? Yes. Do we try to reduce the numbers? Yes. Are we successful yet? No.”

Across the nation’s eighth-largest school district, suspension numbers are climbing rapidly as teachers and principals crack down on students for fighting, for threatening teachers and fellow students, and for bringing weapons onto campuses.

District-wide, more than eight students out of every 100 were suspended during the 1990-91 academic year, higher than any year since 1983-84, and a sharp jump from a low of 6.6 suspensions per 100 students three years ago.

The increases are especially dramatic at the middle-school and junior-high levels, where principals suspended almost 24 out of every 100 students during the 1990-91 academic year.

The districtwide numbers are even more sobering when broken down for black and Latino males.

An African-American student is 3 1/2 times more likely than a white student to be suspended at least once during the year. One out of every four black males was suspended in 1990-91 at least once. For Latino males, the rate approached one out of six.

San Diego administrators have stayed keenly aware of the numbers ever since the federal Office of Civil Rights ruled in 1981 that district suspension patterns showed discrimination against minority students.

The federal office maintained annual monitoring of San Diego city schools through the 1984-85 year, when the rate per 100 students had dropped from 10.2 to 6.9, and the ratio of black suspensions to whites dropped from 3.3 to 2.2.

For the past six years, the district has done its own in-house monitoring. With the rates now on a steep upward climb, the school research division prepared a private report for Supt. Tom Payzant and board trustees late last year detailing the latest trends.

The report said that almost 85% of the increase since 1987-88 could be attributed to jumps at the middle school-junior high level. Of 20 middle- and junior-high schools, 17 had large increases. Of those 17, 12 had their rates zoom more than 33%, 11 were up more than 50%, six climbed more than 75%, three jumped more than 100% and one skyrocketed nearly 200%.

And, with secondary enrollments beginning to climb, the chances are good for even higher rates in the future, the report found, especially as the proportion of Latino students grows and the number of white students drops.

Suspension rates peak in the eighth grade, at 25.3 students per 100 districtwide. For the past nine years, suspensions between grades seven and 12 have remained about five times higher than those between kindergarten and sixth grade. More than three males are suspended for every one female, averaged across all grades.

A higher proportion of Latino and African-American students is likely to have more than one suspension during the school year. The average length of suspensions for the two groups, about 2 1/4 days, is longer than that for whites.

The numbers drop slightly between junior high and high school, probably because many students who might otherwise be suspended have already dropped out of school, the report surmises. Suspended students generally have lower grades, the report found.

African-American students are suspended most often for disruption, using obscenities and for threatening or causing physical injury. Latino students show up most often for weapons violations and property damage. Female suspensions, while low overall, are disproportionately high for drug and alcohol violations and quite low for fighting and weapons.

The report takes note of the racial bias found during the early 1980s, but says that, although “there is bias at schools . . . (there is) no clear evidence that bias plays a part in these disparate suspension rates.”

The report’s author, Peter Bell, views “socioeconomic disadvantages as very important in connection with suspensions. They lead in various ways to higher rates: greater gang involvement, dysfunctional broken families, and poorer school achievement.”

He also speculated that some behavioral differences could result from “cultural differences in acceptable behavior and frustration with school and school performance.”

Bell found that the rates do differ somewhat from school to school, leading him to speculate that “there is uneven application of policy and practice.”

Assistant Supt. Beverly Foster said suspensions “are often a judgment call by principals.

“Some schools are quicker to rush to suspensions, while others may try in-school detention or a Saturday school. When we see a school that has a lot of suspensions, we ask the principals to take a look, such as determining how teachers are getting training on how to deal with behaviors.

“Suspensions should not be just punishment but a way to get everybody’s attention, the student and parent, to change somebody’s behavior. But we do have more students today carrying out more extraordinary behavior at the middle level than we are used to seeing.”

At Kroc, principal Coates said: “The bottom line is that we don’t suspend if we have any other choices. We will go a long way with a kid if he is just a plain screw-up jerky brat.

“What we suspend for now are things that kids are usually arrested for.”

Mann’s Elliott said too many students simply “do not understand that there are consequences from inappropriate behavior,” citing the case of one girl who slugged a boy who dropped her piece of candy. Elliott said the girl, when asked why she resorted to violence, simply answered, “ ‘Because he dropped my candy.’ ”

“Racism is a very easy label to slap on (this) based on the numbers alone,” Elliott said. “But, within the confines of a four-walled classroom, teachers can only deal with a certain range of behavior before they go crazy.”

The principal at Memorial Junior High, in the heart of Barrio Logan, agreed that too many teen-agers today “behave in a way that is disrespectful” at the same time they demand respect.

But the principal, Tony Alfaro, has the lowest overall suspension rate of any middle school or junior high--at 5.9%, far below the 23.7% district average--despite a school population that is 80% Latino and 12% black. He and his staff have decided that, initially, they will err on the side of the student.

“We have many, many behaviors that we know are not correct, but we have to deal with them, and that requires teachers and myself constantly talking, pleading, cajoling with the students--and only sending them home to spend time if, after all of that, they won’t buy into the concept of acceptable school behavior,” Alfaro said.

It’s a constant struggle, and Alfaro concedes to sometimes thinking that “I should just throw the key away and suspend, especially since teachers get worn out trying to (inculcate) behavior that is not taught by the family at home.”

Alfaro’s colleagues do not disagree in theory, and many have begun revamping discipline policies at their schools to cut down on suspensions.

At Standley Junior High in University City, where practically every Latino and black male was in trouble last year at some point, rates have been cut in half this year under a new uniform policy that teachers explain over and over to students.

City schools Police Chief Alex Rascon supports in-school detention and other methods short of sending a student home “because the kids can be controlled better if kept in school.

“Too often, when they are suspended, they came back to school anyway, or go to another campus and cause us trouble there,” Rascon said.

School police Officer Bob Martin, a 20-year veteran, strongly supports a family-connected program being tried at O’Farrell Middle School, where he works part of the time.

Instead of automatically sending troublemakers home, O’Farrell sends them to “R & R,” or Redirection and Rejuvenation, where not only are the students monitored but they talk about their behavior with a trained worker from a family social service agency contracted by the school.

“The traditional in-school suspension is so negative,” O’Farrell teacher Jo Ann Berman said. “This way, they do more than just sit there and be bored. Maybe we can even improve their self-esteem.” Parents can be brought into the process as well.

The R & R resulted from the dissatisfaction of teachers and Principal Bob Stein last year over high suspension rates despite O’Farrell being a new school with small classes and teachers doubling as counselors as a way to “nurture” their students better.

Martin said the number of serious incidents he now has at O’Farrell is far fewer than last year. “And, when I do get a kid, I’m not hearing the immediate (obscene curse) as much as in the past.”

Paying the Consequences

Districtwide, more than eight students out of every 100 were suspended during the 1990-91 academic year, higher than any year since 1983-84. The increases are especially dramatic at the middle-school and junior-high levels, where principals suspended almost 24 out of every 100 students during the 1990-91 academic year.

Suspension rates per 100 students

Middle Schools/Junior Highs 1990-91

School Total Black Males Latino Males O’Farrell 20.7 57.4 27.5 Bell 13.8 35.3 28.8 Challenger 15.4 46.4 46.7 Correia 25.7 64.3 57.1 De Portola 10.8 48.3 43.5 Farb 8.5 30.2 20.0 Keiller 22.5 35.7 44.4 Kroc 22.9 43.0 75.3 Lewis 28.3 72.2 72.1 Mann 36.8 90.9 61.2 Marston 24.5 69.0 38.2 Memorial 5.9 25.0 7.7 Montgomery 28.1 71.4 61.6 Muirlands 12.0 8.3 37.6 Pacific Beach 22.9 62.5 43.1 Pershing 32.4 96.1 94.9 Roosevelt 35.6 93.4 57.1 Standley 36.6 152.8 101.7 Taft 14.2 36.7 23.7 Wagonheim 14.2 57.9 28.6 Wilson 24.1 73.1 26.6 District 23.7

Note: Includes multiple suspensions

Across the Board

An African-American student is 3 1/2 times more likely than a white student to be suspended at least once during the year. One out of every four black males was suspended in 1990-91 at least once. For Latino males, the rate approached one out of six.

Suspension rates per 100 students

All Students Male Female Combined K-6 7-12 District Averages 12.2 3.8 8.1 3.0 16.0 Whites 7.5 2.0 4.8 2.0 9.0 Asians (Includes Filipinos) 7.5 1.9 4.9 1.1 9.8 Latino 14.5 4.6 9.7 2.9 21.8 Black 24.4 9.0 16.9 7.4 32.3

Historical 1982-83 1987-88 1990-91 (Per 100 Students) 10.2 6.6 8.1

Source: San Diego Unified School District