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| FILE - In this Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2015, file photo, Ahmed Mohamed, 14, thanks supporters during a news conference at his home, in Irving, Texas. The recent arrest and three-day suspension of Mohamed, whose teacher mistook his homemade clock for a bomb, led to widespread ridicule of school officials and accusations that Islamophobia may have played a part. Ahmed’s suspension reflects the rigid disciplinary policies that many U.S. schools adopted in the 1990s. But many districts, including some of the nation’s largest, have been softening their approach, foregoing automatic suspensions, expulsions and calls to the police for one-on-one counseling and less severe forms of punishment. |
DALLAS
(AP) -- The recent arrest of a 14-year-old Muslim boy whose teacher
mistook his homemade clock for a possible bomb led to widespread
ridicule of school officials and accusations that Islamophobia may have
played a part.
It earned Ahmed Mohamed an
invitation to the White House, where the Irving teen will attend
astronomy night Monday. But it also got him a three-day suspension,
which he says the district insisted he serve even after it was clear it
was just a clock.
Ahmed's suspension - his
parents have since withdrawn him from the school - reflects the rigid
disciplinary policies that many U.S. schools adopted in the 1990s. But
many districts, including some of the nation's largest, have been
softening their approach, foregoing automatic suspensions, expulsions
and calls to the police for one-on-one counseling and less severe forms
of punishment.
"When we can't tell the
difference between a serious problem and a non-serious problem with a
kid in school, the problem is not the kid: It is us," said Michael
Gilbert, who heads the San Antonio-based National Association of
Community and Restorative Justice, which advocates a focus on dialogue
instead of punishments.
The school districts
in New York, Los Angeles and Denver are just some of those that have
moved away from discipline policies that relied heavily on suspensions.
State governments have also been taking action:
This year, Connecticut
limited out-of-school suspensions and expulsions for students up through
the second grade, Texas decriminalized truancy and Oregon limited when
suspensions and expulsions can be applied to students up through the
fifth grade.
Last year, the Obama
administration asked schools to abandon policies that send kids to
court, issuing guidelines encouraging training school personnel in
conflict resolution.
"We're seeing a lot of
change at the federal, state and local level that I think is moving us
in a new direction," said Russell Skiba, director of The Equity Project
at Indiana University. But, he added, "There are still a lot of schools
that don't have the resources or are afraid to move to something else."
Denver
Public Schools started implementing a so-called restorative discipline
program in 2008. District leaders were concerned about the high number
of suspensions and expulsions, which the grassroots group Padres &
Jovenes Unidos pointed out were being disproportionately used to punish
minority students.
One such student, Margarita
Atencio, said her Denver school suspended her in seventh grade - before
the new policies were fully in place - after other girls beat her up
and blamed her for the incident. When she returned, she couldn't
concentrate on her studies because she was afraid it would happen again.
It did, and this time she was expelled, she said.
"I
was just done. I thought since nobody was on my side that nobody cared
about me really," said Atencio, who had to repeat the seventh grade. Now
19 and a recent high school graduate, she has volunteered as a youth
leader for Padres & Jovenes Unidos for three years.
Eldridge
Greer, who runs the Denver district's Whole Child Supports program,
said the school year before the policy changes began taking effect,
there were about 11,500 out-of-school suspensions and 167 expulsions. He
said last school year, those figures were down significantly, to about
5,400 suspensions and 55 expulsions.
Before
the change, students involved in incidents like shouting matches would
receive out-of-school suspensions, but nothing would be done to address
their behavior, Greer said. Now, such students might meet with a school
official instead to discuss the reasons for the spat and to try to
address them.
Daniel Kim, director of youth
organizing for Padres & Jovenes Unidos, said that while the change
in school discipline policies is benefiting all students, there are
still disparities in the punishment rates for minorities when compared
to whites - especially for blacks.
Outgoing
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said last month that suspensions
and expulsions "track too closely with race and class."
"This
is not just about explicit, obvious bias. Indeed, sometimes, when a
genuinely transparent moment of bias arises, the whole country stops and
takes a break. A child holds a clock. And we see a bomb," he said. "But
more often, it's far subtler stuff."
After
Ahmed's arrest, the police chief said there was no evidence that he
meant to cause alarm. But the school district has declined to explain
its handling of the incident, citing student privacy laws. A spokeswoman
has said the district could provide "a different viewpoint" if given
permission by the family to release his school records.
Dan
Losen, director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA's Civil
Rights Project, said his group's report looking at the most recent U.S.
numbers found out-of-school suspension rates leveling off and racial
gaps narrowing slightly.
Philip Carney said
that three years after starting a restorative discipline program as
principal of Ed White Middle School in San Antonio, out-of-school
suspensions have dropped by 72 percent.
"We
even got to the point where students are handling their own conflicts,
now with us just observing and setting up the process," said Carney, now
the restorative discipline coordinator for his school district.
