Pacific Islander students, along with Black, Hispanic and Native American children, are two to three times more likely to get suspended than White or Asian American students, reports Al Jazeera America.
Reacting to evidence of racial bias, the Seattle School Board voted this week to suspend all out of school suspensions at public elementary schools.
The statistics are overwhelming. Native Americans make up less than one percent of the student body, but 8.57 percent of the suspensions. Whites were 45 percent of the student body, but just 1 percent of the suspensions. Blacks made up 7.6 percent of the suspensions, but 16. 5 percent of the population.
“What is the child learning from being kicked out of school?” asked Jody McVittie of the non-profit Sound Discipline. “What we know is that the kids who misbehave struggle with some basic skills, and when we say to them, you don’t belong here, or we can’t handle you here, we’re not teaching those skills.”
McVittie talks about alternative to suspensions, plus you can read about what other school districts are doing in Al Jazeera America.