Black Students More Likely to Be Suspended in Pinellas: Analysis

Black students in Pinellas County are suspended at rates that far exceed the state of Florida’s six other large school districts.

That’s just one of the findings recently released by the Tampa Bay Times after its staff ran an analysis of more than 600,000 punishments handed down to kids in the district between 2010 and 2015. The paper concluded that black students in Pinellas were about 17 percent more likely to be suspended than their counterparts in Hillsborough, 41 percent more likely than blacks in Palm Beach and 85 percent more likely than black children in Miami-Dade.

During the five-year period looked at, the Times estimated that black students lost a combined total of 45,942 school days to suspension. Most offenses were not violent, the paper noted. They were for reasons that included “not cooperating,” “unauthorized location,” and “class disruption.”

To read the full findings of the analysis, visit the Tampa Bay Times online.

The story is part of the paper’s going series titled “Failure Factories,” which takes an in-depth look at the Pinellas County school system.

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