Supend Something

Study after study, not to mention personal experience, show how little suspensions do as a discipline device.

• Studying Suspensions Costenbader and Markson (1997) examined the responses of 252 students who had been suspended during their school career. Sixty nine percent of those surveyed felt that suspension was of little use, and 32% predicted that they would be suspended again.
• Suspending Kindergarteners --is this reasonable? Is this? USA Today's article on topic
• Shocking Stats a report by the legal defense and education fund of the NAACP on Florida's suspension track record: "statewide there has been a 14% increase in the number of out-of-school suspensions issued in the last five years, leading to an astonishing 441,694 out-of-school suspensions in 2004-05."
• NYC Suspension Issues: "citations for less serious offenses in those schools, such as misdemeanor assault, have risen 72 percent, up from an average of 8.6 to 14.8 citations per day. These citations all carry suspensions as well."

If the purpose of school to educate students, and the purpose of consequences in school is to change behavior, then Baltimore city needs to drastically rethink and rework their policy towards “punishing” misbehavior. Two suggestions immediately spring to mind.
Start by changing out-of-school “vacations” as they are sometimes referred to in my school (though always sarcastically, few students like suspensions—they complain of being bored) to in-school suspensions. This would require a secured room and at least one fully certified teacher to run it. Students could be sent to in-school suspension for any of the typical suspension reasons—from out of uniform violations to fighting. The room, silent, with required (and rigorous) work developed by the teachers to be done independently, could be a place to calm down students that need space, and refocus students that begin treating school like the mall. Make in-school suspension work due before students can leave, so that it turns into immediate detention. This isolates students that are not capable of handle classroom environment at the moment (for whatever reason) without cutting them off from school entirely, sending the message they neither belong nor are wanted in the school, and leaving them to their own devices for days at a time.

Another change could be in scheduling. Arrange study-hall periods in the days, starting with middle school. Extend the day to provide the time, and give students that follow the rule this time to “chill out” if they desire—listen to music, draw, play cards, eat lunch leisurely, finish projects, work on computers. Students that violate school rules can lose privileges, and face time doing “work” for the school in the office or classroom, or have to report to tutoring classes. Suspension should be a drastic problem; Baltimore city needs more useful interventions to act as brakes, before students crash headlong into suspension. But since options are limited, providing a structured sense of privileges that could be lost might work in the same way.