Will New York City Flunk on School Discipline Reform?

In late July, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced plans to ban school suspensions for students in kindergarten, first, and second grades, pushing schools to opt instead for alternative behavioral redresses, such as counseling. Student, parent, and teacher reform groups welcomed the news, which was made public along with NYPD data showing significant racial disparities in police-student interventions.

But at a hearing on Monday, the de Blasio administration signaled that the suspension ban may come with major loopholes. According to a Department of Education presentation, the proposed “ban” may still allow for early-grade suspensions if “a student has already been removed from the classroom three times during a semester or twice during a trimester.”

“We are shocked,” says Kesi Foster, a reform advocate with the Urban Youth Collaborative, who spoke to CityLab on Tuesday. “Yesterday, we felt that, even if the city wasn’t ending the school-to-prison pipeline, it was committed to some progress. After last night, we’re not sure we’ve taken a step at all.”

In a statement to CityLab, NYC DOE spokesperson Toya Holness said the proposed changes, which could still be further amended, “will put more age-appropriate discipline practices in place to help improve behavior, address underlying issues head on, and keep students in the classroom where they can learn,” pointing to the “more than $47 million annually” allocated for “restorative trainings, mental-health programs and social-emotional supports,” among other initiatives.

For school-reform advocates, however, the weak language of the proposal summary* shared in the hearing was surprising, given that a full K-2 suspension ban already seemed to be a fairly modest step. The proposed reforms are part of a larger national debate over what should be done about school discipline, which reform advocates say is helping drive students into the criminal justice system from very early ages.

Research in states across the country has shown that a student’s odds of dropping out of school jump significantly after just a single suspension; in turn, dropping out significantly increases one’s chances of getting roped into the criminal-justice system. In New York City, as across the nation, students of color, especially black students, bear the brunt of controversial school disciplinary practices. Black students are nearly four times more likely to be suspended than white students, according to a 2016 city report.

But de Blasio faces pressure from several interest groups, including the principals’ union, the teachers’ union, and charter-school advocates, who have to varying degrees opposed reforms to the district’s disciplinary code.