ACLU Report Scolds NK for "Over-Suspending" Students with IEPs

Students with disabilities are suspended four times more than normal in North Kingstown and far more than any other public school district in Rhode Island, according to a recent report by the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Almost half of the students in North Kingstown who are disciplined with out-of-school suspensions have individualized education plans, or IEPs, even though only 10 percent of the student body has IEPs, according to the report.

“Very often, it is the children already most in need of educational intervention and support who are instead removed from school,” the report’s executive summary states. “For these singled-out students, the consequences can be long lasting and disastrous.”

The report suggests a troubling tendency for districts across Rhode Island to opt for suspension over intervention even as early as lower elementary grades for things like roughhousing and typical childish behavior.

While the report singles out North Kingstown, it notes that across all districts, students with disabilities comprised 32 percent of all suspension over a nine year period — more than twice what is expected based on the fact that they represent just 16 percent of the student body population.

“Low risk infractions” accounted for 60 percent of all suspensions and the disparity was the highest in earlier grades.

“The labels assigned to the behavior of even the youngest students call into question the over reliance on suspensions for normal childhood roughhousing,” the report states. For all school districts, “during the 2013-2014 school year, 266 suspensions for fighting or assault were issued to students between kindergarten and the second grade; 21.05% of these suspensions were issued to students with disabilities.”

North Kingstown Superintendent Phil Auger said in an e-mail message Thursday that he just saw the report today.

“I will review it with our staff to better understand what these numbers mean, and we will proceed accordingly to rectify problem areas. With graduation this week it will take a little time before we can do a full review,” he said.

The report follows the ACLU’s ongoing efforts to highlight disparities in how school districts have been doling out harsher punishments for students of color as compared to their white peers for identical infractions.

The data is based on data collected by the school districts themselves.

Some highlights from the report (for all districts):

• Half of all suspensions were issued for offenses like “disorderly conduct” or “insubordination/disrespect,” which are subjective in nature.
• Elementary school children with disabilities are suspended at a rate 2.58 times higher than expected even though they comprise just 14 percent of the population. They represent 38 percent of all suspensions.
• The 266 suspensions for assault and fighting issued to students between K-2 were “nearly the same number” of assault and fighting suspensions for all elementary school and high school suspensions.
• Charter schools, with two exceptions, also over-suspended students with disabilities. Only the MET School was within a normal range and Trinity Academy for the Performing Arts had no suspensions.
• 28 districts and 6 charter schools suspended students without disabilities at lower-than-expected-rates.
• Students with disabilities made up more than 40 percent of suspensions in Central Falls, Cumberland, Johnston, Narragansett, North Kingstown, Portsmouth and West Warwick.
• The schools with the lowest disparity rates, including Barrington and Woonsocket, still suspended students 1.41 times higher than expected “which is nothing to celebrate,” the report said.
• Altogether, 14.45% of students with disabilities were suspended at least once between 2005 and 2014, compared to just 6.65% of students without disabilities.
• Between the 2005-2006 and 2013-2014 school years, 101,724 students lost a total of 405,658 instruction days to suspensions.
• In the 2013-2014 school year, 60% of all suspensions were issued for these minor infractions. In that same year, 14.58% of Rhode Island’s students with disabilities were suspended from school, compared to just 6.66% of children without disabilities.

“The figures suggest that, while students with disabilities are supposed to be given myriad services, they are being removed from school not because of their behavior, but because of the failure of schools to meet their needs. Worse, they are being disproportionately suspended for relatively minor, and often subjective, infractions,” the report states.

The ACLU report offered a series of recommendations to keep students in the classroom, including passage of legislation currently before the General Assembly that would limit the use of out-of-school suspensions for only the most serious offenses. The ACLU further recommended that the Rhode Island Department of Education and local school districts examine their data to identify disparities in the suspension rates of students with disabilities, develop plans to reduce those disparities, and investigate alternative evidence-based disciplinary methods.

Hillary Davis, author of the report, stated: “Suspensions have for too long been a first response to children’s behavior instead of a last resort. That Rhode Island’s children with disabilities are suspended even when federal law requires they be given particular behavioral supports only underscores the overreliance on suspensions to address the behavior that comes with being a child. Children with disabilities deserve better than a ‘troublemaker’ label and a trip down the school-to-prison pipeline, and Rhode Island must work to do better by them.”

A copy of the report is available here:http://riaclu.org/images/uploads/Suspended_Education_Final_060415.pdf

District specific data is available here: http://riaclu.org/images/uploads/Suspended_Education_20132014_Districts.pdf