Pulaski County Special School District data continues to show a discipline disparity between black and non-black students.
But sanctions against black males, in particular, are declining, a court-appointed expert in a long-running school desegregation lawsuit said Friday.
"There is no magic cure for eliminating discipline programs in schools," Margie Powell, desegregation expert to Chief U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr., wrote to the judge.
Powell said that "with its interconnected discipline programs system, the district administration has demonstrated that eliminating discipline disparities is a priority and, based on the data for the past three years, it seems to be doing just that."
She said there is a "significant and steady decline" in discipline sanctions for black students, who make up 48% of the district's overall enrollment. Black students constitute the majority, 62%, of students suspended last year.
"Data still reflect a disparity with respect to discipline sanctions between black and white students, however, beginning in 2016, when compared to previous years, discipline sanctions for black students have shown a significant and steady decline," she wrote. "Black males were the only subgroup to have a decline in out-of-school suspensions, while white females [made up the] only subgroup to see an increase in out-of-school suspensions over the past three years."
Powell's report is the second of eight reports she is writing by Jan. 31 on efforts by the Pulaski County Special and Jacksonville/North Pulaski school districts to comply with previously unmet provisions of their court-approved desegregation plan, known as Plan 2000, and related court orders.
The Powell reports are being done in advance of next summer's federal court hearings to determine whether the two central Arkansas districts -- parties in what is now a 36-year-old lawsuit -- are eligible to be declared unitary, or desegregated, and released from further federal court supervision of their operations.
The court hearings -- to be structured as five mini-trials organized by subject area -- will be in July and August.
John Walker, the lead attorney for the black students who are intervenors in the desegregation case, was away from his office Friday and couldn't be reached for immediate comment at his home about the Powell report.
Sherman Whitfield, the district's director of pupil services, in August had compiled discipline data for the 2018-19 report for the School Board.
He said in a written statement Friday evening, "Utilizing researched based and student-centered initiatives, PCSSD is making positive strides. The disparity, as it relates to discipline, is on the decline. Data from the last three years reveal a significant drop in discipline."
"I'm kind of excited about it this year in that we definitely saw some decreases in the numbers," Whitfield said at the time. "However, we still have work to do. We saw decreases in suspensions and in-house discipline and those kinds of [measures]. But we still have work to do relative to black-white -- that percentage gap between black and white students. We're still working on that. That's our focus," he said.
The Pulaski County Special district is obligated by its desegregation plan "to continue to gather data which allows a full assessment of its success in achieving its objective of eliminating racial disparities in the imposition of school discipline.
"As a foundation for this effort, disciplinary records shall be kept on each student concerning the nature of any discipline imposed ... and the teacher and staff member involved; and the school, race and sex of the student," the requirement reads.
To assess that, Powell focused largely on data for the 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 school years that she pulled from the district's own annual discipline report, the most recent of which was submitted to the district's School Board this August.
"Suspension rates for black males decreased for the third year in a row," Powell said about the discipline data for this past school year.
Powell in her eight-page document for the judge did not cite the actual student numbers, but the district's own discipline report from August said there were a total of 689 black males suspended and 444 non-black males suspended last school year.
The number of suspended black males dropped by 56, or 7.51%, when compared with 2017-18 counts, according to the district's own report. That was actually exceeded by the drop in the number of suspended white males and other non-black males, which declined by 107. That was a 19.41% decline compared with the previous school year.
Powell said that in the school year that just ended, the student expulsion rates for all students declined, from an overall number of 20 in the previous year to 11 in the 2018-19 school year. Of the 11 expelled, seven were black males and another was a black female, she said.
Discipline sanctions levied against school-bus riders overall decreased for a third year -- even through the percentage of white males suspended from riding the bus increased, Powell reported.
In-school suspensions of students declined between 2016 and 2018 -- a total of 389 fewer students received suspensions. In all, 92 elementary pupils were given in-school suspensions, including 50 black males, 21 white males, 17 black females and four white females. At the middle and high school levels, there were 508 black males suspended, 276 white males, 333 black females and 253 white females, according to Powell's report.
The district's desegregation Plan 2000 requires the district's leader for desegregation and pupil services to work with teachers and other employees -- especially those associated with high numbers of student sanctions -- to work toward the goal of eliminating racial disparities in discipline.
Powell listed and briefly described for the judge the district's Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports program, the Advancement Via Individual Determination program and the teen court/restorative practices initiative in which students who admit to violations of rules can ask to go to teen court at school rather than into a juvenile justice system.
The district also uses a Response to Intervention system to tailor interventions to the specific needs of students. And students who commit the most serious Tier III violations of rules can be assigned to an alternative learning environment setting in the district rather than be excluded from an education program. Alternative education is for students who don't do well -- for whatever reason -- in typical classrooms.
"School personnel are asked to deal with issues that students bring to the classroom that they are not trained to handle: lack of parental guidance, violence in the home, undiagnosed mental illnesses, and the affects of poverty, to name a few, Powell said in her report.
"In many cases, school districts use a shotgun approach to implement programs designed to improve discipline, hoping to hit the target. The PCSSD did the same. As a result, discipline rates and disparities between black and white students remained significantly high."
Powell said that although the district has a "history of perfunctory initiatives and poorly designed behavior programs," employees now have joined together to develop a research-based, student-centered discipline system that seems to be working.
The Advancement Via Individual Determination program, the district's most comprehensive initiative, has the potential for being a game changer with respect to discipline disparities as well as academic achievement, Powell said. The program's "training includes classroom management, curriculum, teaching techniques, and cultural competencies."
She expressed hope for the teen court plan that is just getting organized.
"It could be just the right thing that will keep students in school and out of the juvenile justice system."
A Section on 10/19/2019