RALEIGH, N.C. — The number of reportable criminal offenses —including those involving weapons — at North Carolina schools rose last school year, reversing years of improvements, according to new data released Wednesday from the Department of Public Instruction.
Offenses rose for possession of weapons and controlled substances, and suspensions and dropouts also rose.
The data reflect North Carolina’s backslide in student progress since the COVID-19 pandemic prompted disruptions at school and elsewhere. That slip is reflected in declining test scores and nationally in surveys on student behavior; the vast majority of public school leaders have said the pandemic negatively affected student behavior, according to a federal survey.
*The chart above shows the number of short-term suspensions among Black students at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and Wake County Schools in proportion to the total number of short-term suspensions among all students in those districts.
The report by NCDPI shows across the state 217,928 students received a short-term suspension.
The schools with the most short-term suspensions statewide were CMS with 21,411, Wake County Schools with 11,355, and then Winston Salem/Forsyth County Schools with 10,160 short-term suspensions.
In the WCNC area, CMS topped the list with the most short-term suspensions followed by Gaston County Schools with 7,233, and Union County Schools with 4,712.
Dee Rankin, a new CMS Board member said high suspension rates are an issues CMS has long struggled with.
Rankin said when it comes to following policies to reduce suspension rates the district is not hitting the mark.
"There are no standards across the districts," Rankin said. "One school is doing one thing, another school is doing another thing."
He said one example is the policy on letting parents know they can appeal their child’s suspension in some circumstances.
"They're supposed to be informed by the principal about their right to appeal," Rankin said. "And also they can appeal to the Learning Community superintendent. That's how it's supposed to be."
Rankin said how often this is done is likely varied from school to school.
"I don't think those practices are put in place," Rankin said. "I don't think everyone is letting parents know you have the right to appeal."
CMS has made some strides in reducing suspension rates in certain grades.
"We know that there was intentionality around K-2 suspensions," Rankin said. "There was a strategy around it that was put in place and we've seen a drastic drop in the number of K-2 suspensions since this was put into play."
Rankin said they must go further.
He wants to see more concrete language on what constitutes a suspension. An example he gave was suspension for things like insubordination.
"Insubordination, is so vague, if a student doesn't sit down when they're supposed to, they can get a referral, written for insubordination, and get suspended," Rankin said.
He also said the district needs to offer more support to teachers
“There may be some teachers who may need more support on how to manage classrooms, how to manage behaviors," Rankin said.
Rankin admits the causes and solutions to reducing suspension rates are not simple.
As part of its student-focused governance model, the district has a guardrail to reduce out-of-school suspension disproportionately for Black students in all grades.
As of Dec. 31, 2022, the report said Black students made up 36% of the overall student body. At the same time, 68% of black students received at least one out-of-school suspension. That's a 32 percentage point difference. The lower the percentage, the better the disproportionality rate.
CMS wants to reduce the current 36% rate by 4 more percentage points by end of the school year to 28%. By 2024 it wants it reduced to 23%. The end goal is to make the percentage of suspension closer in number to the percentage of students.
"While our out-of-school suspension disproportionality rates for Black students is down compared to pre-pandemic rates, there is much more aggressive work that needs to be done," Crystal Hill, CMS Interim Superintendent, said at a February board meeting.
Last school year in all North Carolina schools 52% of short-term suspensions were Black students.
At CMS Black students at CMS represented 71% of all short-term suspensions.
Compared to a similar-sized district Black students at Wake represented 56% of all short-term suspensions.
"I keep saying and repeating this, that the school-to-prison pipeline is a theory, but it's real," Rankin said.
The school-to-prison pipeline is defined as the disproportionate tendency of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds to become incarcerated because of increasingly harsh school policies.
"It starts in the schools, the high suspension of Black boys, and then from this, it leads to the dropout rate, dropout rate leads you to the criminal justice system," Rankin said.
- Not enough viable high-quality alternatives to out-of-school suspensions.
- Disciplinary decisions and consequences that were overly punitive instead of redemptive.
Rankin said some of the reasons why Black students are being suspended at such high rates include implicit bias and lack of training and resources at the school level.
"It may not be a behavior thing, it could be like I said, a student with a disability that just needs more, more resources or more need is not being me," Rankin said.
He also identified a cultural component.
"Sometimes students are just misunderstood," Rankin said.
The district is using several tactics to reduce the number.
They include in-school intervention centers, expansion of short-term suspension sites, core behavior specialists, and behavior modification technicians assigned to each learning community to provide school-level support, integration of social-emotional learning into instruction, and ongoing professional development for principals, assistant principals, and deans.
"What we need to start doing is looking at some of the referral rates at the school level, and figuring out which teachers are sending the most referrals and why," Rankin said.
Rankin said he was to see more accountability for these rates from the board room to the classroom.
Shamarria Morrison: Contact Shamarria Morrison at smorrison@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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