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Out-of-school suspension: School discipline's dirty (and costly) little secret

One of the biggest problems facing many intermediate and secondary public schools in the United States is a reliance on out-of-school suspensions as a means of maintaining discipline. There are alternatives.

But first, let's take the case of Rochester, a small city in Western New York. Its intermediate and high school population numbers approximately 33,000 students. In 2007, an equivalent to one out of three city school students was suspended. That is, more than 11,000 suspensions as the result of actions taken against about 5,500 students. I am glad it is not more, and we should celebrate the vast majority who don't wind up on the streets. It is the chronic offenders who would most benefit from a disciplined in-school experience, instead of being set adrift when misbehaving.

As a former teacher, who left the profession after being assaulted by 3 students, I have always been against out-of-school suspension. It puts the kids at risk of harm and free to exploit the very behaviors for which they were suspended. This week (February 18, 2008), two 15 year-old students were shot and killed while at a house known for harboring drug dealing. And, these are just the most recent victims of the often murderous violence on Rochester's streets. The fate of these two young boys represents the worst-case scenario facing our youth.
While we can't know if these two kids were ever suspended, the fact is they were at a place they shouldn't have been. And, it can be assumed with data behind it that these two students represent a cohort of kids for whom school is a non-starter. Thus, the disrespect for both themselves and others, the cause of most out-of-school suspensions.

Consider an in-school solution. It will cost money, but far, far less than the cost of turning these kids loose in the streets. In a report produced by the non-profit and non-partisan anti-crime organization Fight Crime: Invest in Kids New York (http://www.fightcrime.org/ny/ rep/jjdist.pdf) the price for a juvenile placed in the custody of the New York Office of Children and Family
Services is $125,000 over 10 months, and in New York City, it costs over $200,000 to hold a juvenile in custody for a year. This does not include the cost of delinquency, vandalism and harm to victims. This is a cost we all bare. Knowing this we have only ourselves to blame if they wind up arrested, injured or dead, due to reckless behavior, violence and /or

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