30 days of Raps about Principal Mark Cerutti

This New York Times article about discipline in the Connecticut school system looks into how the number of suspensions in that state have risen radically over the past few years -- nearly doubling over the course of the two years following the Columbine school shootings.

Perhaps Connecticut is the exception, not the rule. Or perhaps not. The first paragraph below certainly sounds to me like it could be describing the nation, rather than just one state.

In Schools, Bad Behavior Is Shown the Door
(Link to original)
By JANE GORDON

Published: November 16, 2003

In the state's school systems, zero tolerance has become more than a catch phrase, more than just a stern warning that misbehaving students had better shape up. It is the way schools now do business, an almost unyielding policy that has been living up to its name.

As a result, students are being kicked out of schools like never before. The number of suspensions jumped about 90 percent from 1998-1999 to 2000-2001. In the 2000-2001 school year, 90,559 children were suspended from school around the state, up from 57,626 two years earlier. The State Department of Education did not provide statistics for earlier years, but education experts said the numbers have never been higher.

Even kindergarteners haven't been spared. For that grade alone, the rate of suspensions/expulsions almost doubled over a two-year period, to 901 for the 2002-2003 school year, from 463 in 2001-2002, according to figures provided by Jeanne Milstein, the state's child advocate. She said they were suspended and expelled for such things as fighting, defiance, and temper tantrums. "I would have been suspended from kindergarten," she said.

Some researchers, child advocacy groups and parents blame the increase on the fallout from the zero-tolerance policies that swept the country during the Reagan-Bush years and became entrenched after the Columbine shootings in 1999. The evolution of the policies mirrors the climb in suspension and expulsion numbers in Connecticut's public schools, as administrations coping with less money and fewer services pull problematic students out of the classroom, then out of the school. In Newington, for example, the high school began a policy about five years ago to not only automatically suspend students caught fighting at the high school, but also have them arrested and charged with breach of peace.

Some administrators said they weren't thrilled with the zero-tolerance trend, but said it is sometimes a struggle for teachers to keep control of their classrooms.

"I think it's a horrific practice except in extreme cases when we remove the child from harming himself or harming his classmates," said Dr. Doris Kurtz, the superintendent of schools in New Britain. "But education comes under attack when you do, and when you don't. Many schools don't have the means to deal with these kids. The principal can't sit there and babysit children all day, there are no in-school suspension rooms and someone to watch over them, there is a severe lack of resources. So they suspend them, because sometimes it's the only avenue.

"The other kids have rights, and parents want to see their children being educated," she said. "Some children come with problems and issues so severe, even at very young ages, they disrupt the whole school setting."

And it's not just urban schools that are struggling with discipline. New Fairfield schools have had more expulsions in the first couple of months of this school year than in any of the five full years that Dr. Kathleen Matusiak has been superintendent.

"A lot of the issues have to do with bringing weapons - box cutters, knives - to school, not necessarily with an intention to hurt," Dr. Matusiak said. "Some have involved alcohol and drugs, poor judgment. We have clearly articulated conduct codes that don't tolerate those things in our schools. Our schools are for teaching and learning."

Zero tolerance first appeared as the name of a 1986 program that impounded boats carrying drugs. In 1994, the Gun-Free Schools Act became law and called for a student to be expelled for one full year for carrying a firearm to school. Schools broadened the policy, using the same severe disciplinary measures for varying degrees of behavior.

"A lot of this has to do with kids who are very undisciplined, especially at the urban schools, where the children haven't received discipline at home," said Susan Patrick of the Governor's Prevention Partnership, a nonprofit anti-drug-abuse organization. "It's very complicated and messy. I'm in agreement with zero tolerance for keeping dangerous weapons out of school, but the extension of it, to broadly address disruptive behaviors, I don't agree with that at all."

The organization convened a task force to look at the issue, documenting that increased rates of suspension and expulsion contributed to increased risks of a student dropping out of school.

"On the other hand, educators have indicated that they are experiencing increasing frequency and severity of disruptive behaviors among students," the report said. "The task force believes the emerging pattern in Connecticut public schools increasing use of suspension and expulsion as mainstays of our disciplinary response to behavior problems should be reversed."

They also trained 500 student assistants to move into the schools to identify disciplinary problems and work with families to devise a plan for support. Ms. Patrick said the task force found that about 10 to 20 percent of students in the public schools required mental health services. The other 80 to 90 percent, she said, had other needs, including improved parent education and better teaching training.

The dismissal of very young children from the classroom, for example, surprised many people. They said that questionable behavior in a 5-year-old can be interpreted quite differently than that in a 16-year-old.

"It's inexcusable to expel a kindergarten child," said Shelley Geballe, co-president of Connecticut Voices for Children, a statewide advocacy group. "The goal of a kindergarten program should be to provide the skills of not only academics but behavior. Zero tolerance that results in pushing out kids is wrongheaded, and I get concerned particularly now that we have a reduction in access to mental-health services, we have teachers who may not be well-trained in understanding the emotional and developmental needs of young kids, and you have the No Child Left Behind pressures that provide further incentive to push kids out to get those standardized test scores up."

A mother with a boy in the Hartford school system said her son, who is now 10, has been suspended repeatedly over the years for aggressive behavior. He is now being tutored for two hours a day outside the classroom.

"I've tried to explain to the principal that suspending my son is not going to better him in any way," the mother, who asked that her name not be used, said. "He needs to be sitting in a structured classroom, he needs teachers who understand children and know how to maneuver around them. To suspend little kids, it's ridiculous. At 10 years old, these are the most important years of school. If you don't get it then, you're not going to get it."

Steve Edwards became principal of East Hartford High School in 1992, after the school's administrators had embraced zero tolerance and suspension numbers were high.

A student brought a gun to school soon after Mr. Edwards arrived, and he was promptly expelled. Not long after, another student was found with a small pocket knife in his pocket. "He never brandished it," Mr. Edwards said. "I don't know how we even discovered it was there."

The Board of Education expelled him, too. Mr. Edwards disagreed with the second punishment, deeming it too extreme for the offense.

"The young man who had the gun had extensive history, the other kid had a couple of detentions. But they both received the same punishment," said Mr. Edwards, who left the high school last year to become vice president of the National Crime Prevention Council. "There was no flexibility, no taking into account the history of the child. So we took a different approach after that."

The approach changed so drastically that in the final eight years of Mr. Edwards' 10-year tenure at the school, not one child was expelled from East Hartford High School, he said. Counseling, a vocation component or volunteer work in the community, and a continuance of the education of the child, somewhere in the school if not in the classroom, contributed to the decrease, he said.

In Bridgeport, a city whose suspensions and expulsion rate climbed to 7,271 in the 2000-2001 school year from 6,606 the year before, a philosophical change has taken place. The city's superintendent, Sonia Diaz-Salcedo, who left the New York City school system four years ago to run Bridgeport's schools, said she was determined to bring the numbers down. The past two years she has done so. Two years ago, the number decreased to a little more than 6,500. Last year, it dropped to 6,286.

"Teachers were using suspensions and expulsions a lot," Ms. Diaz-Salcedo said. "We talked to our staff about student discipline, we've done a lot of professional development. Over all, we've tried to instill a very different message about students and the culture in schools. We are promoting a culture of caring."

Efforts to bring down expulsion and suspension rates can backfire. Hartford teachers protested when three middle-school students were suspended for five days last year for assaulting a substitute teacher. Teachers accused the administration of trying to improve the struggling system's public face without making significant changes and met with the police to try to force the school system to report violence to the police.

The State Department of Education numbers document a wildly fluctuating record for Hartford, with 226 expulsions and 1,076 suspensions in 1999-2001, and a decrease of expulsions, to 43, the next year, according to education department figures. But suspensions jumped to 9,248.

The state determined in a report this year that there were no "persistently dangerous schools" operating in Connecticut, but talk to Hartford teachers. They disagreed.

"We've had so many staff injured," said Tim Murphy, president of the Hartford Federation of Teachers. "We have seen a tremendous effort to reduce the numbers of suspensions and dropouts, but at what expense? We're facing a very hostile environment, and we are very exposed here."

Hartford schools have long been the Achilles heel of the state educational system, and little has worked to change them. Gangs in the schools, stories of parents assaulting teachers, including a case of a parent who struck a school principal two years ago, has contributed to a sense of futility in certain city schools.

"Every instance of bullying is supposed to be reported," Mr. Murphy said. "It's widespread, invasive in this school system. But the Hartford schools are telling us there were only three cases of bullying in the whole system last year. Are you kidding me?" He laughed bitterly. "There is a kind of belief that you have to tolerate a lesser standard of behavior now, for inner-city kids especially. We object to that strenuously."

Sandy Cruz-Serrano, senior advisor to the Hartford superintendent of schools, said she is aware of the union's complaints.

"In reviewing our discipline code, we are addressing the issue of accurate reporting," she said. "The Hartford Federation of Teachers continues to partner with us on this revision. "States vary in their definition of expulsion and suspension. In Connecticut, expulsions can range from 11 to 180 days and must be approved by the local board of education. Suspensions are handed out by the school administration, to a maximum of 10 days. Once a child is removed from school, the district is bound by law to provide a minimum of 10 hours a week of instruction. Doctors at Hartford Hospital said they are seeing higher numbers of students brought into the emergency room, as administrators at a loss for what to do with belligerent students call police to bring the students to the hospital for psychiatric evaluations. New Britain High School said it seeks the evaluations to determine the cause of the behavior, instead of simply punishing students for it.

"An increasing number of kids from any number of towns, and various schools, are ending up in the E.R. because they've had a fight," said Dr. Lisa Karabelnik, a child psychiatrist at the Connecticut Children's Medical Center in Hartford. Dr. Karabelnik said she had seen about 50 students for psychiatric evaluations in the emergency room since school began this year, almost one child per day. The hospital prefers that schools contact the Wheeler Clinic in Plainville, which operates an emergency mobile psychiatric service for children.

"Unfortunately," she said, "most of the schools dealing with these children don't have the resources now to work with them successfully."

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Posted by Lance Brown at November 19, 2003 08:41 PM | TrackBack