- Suspensions and expulsions down in D.C. charter schools [LAYC Career Academy Public Charter School, IDEA Public Charter School, YouthBuild Public Charter School, KIPP DC AIM Academy Public Charter, Options Public Charter School and Friendship Public Charter School-Collegiate Academy are mentioned]
- City Officials Tackle Absenteeism, Truancy
- D.C. turning the corner on special education
Suspensions and expulsions down in D.C. charter schools [LAYC Career Academy Public Charter School, IDEA Public Charter School, YouthBuild Public Charter School, KIPP DC AIM Academy Public Charter, Options Public Charter School and Friendship Public Charter School-Collegiate Academy are mentioned]
The Washington Post
September 4 at 8:50 PM
By Michael Alison Chandler
The expulsion rate for D.C. public charter schools in the past school year was about half of what it was two years before, and the rate of out-of-school suspensions decreased by about 20 percent in one year, according to a report released Thursday.
The D.C. Public Charter School Board has made it a priority to reduce expulsions and out-of-school suspensions in recent years. Expulsion rates for 2011-2012 were higher than national averages and far above those at the city’s traditional public schools.
“We are really pleased with the results,” said Scott Pearson, the charter board’s director. “We believe that we are on the right track in terms of moving to a discipline system where there is a real appreciation at our schools of the importance of keeping students in school and in the classroom because you don’t learn when you are not in school.”
Looking at all city charter schools, about 12 percent of students had at least one out-of-school suspension last school year, down from 14.7 percent in 2012-2013. The expulsion rate dropped from 0.72 in 2011-2012 to 0.37 last year, the report says.
Suspensions and expulsions in the 2013-2014 school year decreased at the elementary, middle and high school levels. Suspensions in early childhood — pre-kindergarten and kindergarten — rose from 206 to 265, or 2.4 to 2.9 percent of all students.
A report from the D.C. Public Charter School Board said that expulsions and suspensions are down as the city's charter schools pay closer attention to the issue. Read the report.
The Office of the State Superintendent of Education recommended ending the suspension of pre-kindergartners in a recent city report on school discipline. The report said young children might not understand why they were being punished and might be acting out in ways within developmental norms.
Nationwide, educators are rethinking school discipline policies based on strong evidence that poor and minority students are far more likely to be suspended or expelled and that such punishments are statistically linked to dropping out or going to jail or prison later in life. The charter school board’s report did not break down its data by race and ethnicity or by socioeconomic status.
Charter schools, which are publicly funded but operate independently, have the latitude to set discipline policies and to expel students they deem dangerous or disruptive. Charters are often criticized for taking advantage of that freedom and accused of sending the most difficult students back to traditional public schools that are mandated to serve all students.
D.C. charter schools expel students at far higher rates than the city’s traditional public schools. A Washington Post review of school data in 2013 found that in the three preceding years, D.C. charter schools expelled 676 students; the traditional public schools expelled 24.
The charter school board began reporting school discipline data two years ago, operating under the belief that greater transparency, rather than new regulations, would encourage schools to improve, Pearson said.
Discipline numbers are improving as schools rethink discipline policies, he said. Some charter schools are moving away from zero-tolerance policies or shortening the list of infractions that lead to automatic suspension or expulsion. Some are adopting “restorative justice” models, under which students set their own punishments and attempt to make up for any harm they’ve done. On many campuses, in-school suspensions are replacing out-of-school suspensions. That way, students continue to learn, Pearson said.
Several schools were identified in a briefing as making significant improvements in the past year. The expulsion rate at LAYC Career Academy Public Charter School in Ward 1 went from 5.9 percent to 1.7 percent; IDEA Public Charter School in Ward 7 went from 4.4 to 0.5 percent; and YouthBuild Public Charter School in Ward 1 went from 4.3 to 0.9 percent.
Last school year, 68 public charter schools did not expel any students, up from 64 the year before.
The highest expulsion rate was 3.3 percent, at KIPP DC AIM Academy Public Charter in Ward 8, up from 1.2 percent the year before, to 11 expulsions. Options Public Charter School and Friendship Public Charter School-Collegiate Academy also had expulsion rates higher than 2 percent.
Susan Schaeffler, founder of KIPP DC, said the number of expulsions for all KIPP DC schools declined last year. She said the increase at AIM Academy was attributable to an isolated incident.
“KIPP DC only expels students for violent or dangerous behavior, and expulsion is always a last resort,” Schaeffler said. “Our parents entrust us with the safety of their children, and it’s the responsibility of the school to provide a safe learning environment for the thousands of students that attend KIPP DC schools each day.”
The charter school board report also says truancy rates in charter schools declined in the past year. The percentage of students ages 5 through 18 who missed 10 or more days of school without an excuse declined to 15 percent from 19 percent.
City Officials Tackle Absenteeism, Truancy
The Washington Informer
By Dorothy Rowley
9/3/2014, 3 p.m.
More than a year after a meeting at Anne Beers Elementary School in Southeast where city leaders, parents and community activists struggled to come to terms with the schools’ burgeoning student absenteeism and truancy rates, little progress has been made lowering the numbers.
In effect, the problem has escalated, with more elementary-age students having racked up excessive numbers of unexcused days from school, according to a report released earlier this year by the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) system.
In 2013 for instance, 269 pre-kindergarten students had more than 20 days of unexcused absences. During the same academic term, of the 3,408 pre-kindergarten students enrolled at District public schools, 1,518 racked up 1 to 5 days of unexcused absences.
“But you have to be careful with the numbers, because they’re not always what they seem,” said Mary Filardo, executive director of the 21st Century School Fund in Northwest. “There are a lot of low-income households, especially in wards 5, 7 and 8, where conditions like asthma and a host of other childhood illnesses come into play,” she said.
“Four-year-olds might wake up not feeling well, so the parent is not going to send them to school. Same thing for a three-year-old who’s not feeling that good,” said Filardo, 60, who added that while many elementary school-age absences center on illnesses, housing issues often dictate school attendance as well.
“There are a lot of underprivileged families in the school system who have been evicted and, as a result are homeless,” said Filardo. “So they end up living from house-to-house with relatives or in long- term stays at homeless shelters.”
Vicky Wright Smith, whose daughter attends McKinley Technology Education Campus in Northeast, said she’d always been under the impression that the majority of middle and high school students play hooky from school.
“I wasn’t aware that so many young children are missing school. It’s unbelievable to hear of children at that level intentionally skipping school,” Wright-Smith said. “But if they are absent to that extent, it’s a parental issue going on.”
She added her concern that the new school boundaries that go into effective with the 2015-16 term, could further exacerbate chronic absenteeism and truancy.
“Generally, children have access to schools in their boundaries,” Wright-Smith said. “But because they have to attend schools out of their neighborhoods, which in many cases is a result of mandated school closings in their communities, children end up attending schools they don’t like – and that could be a real problem as it relates to absenteeism and truancy.”
Filardo agreed, noting how school boundaries can also negatively impact travel time to school.
“There are students who are traveling well over a half mile to school, with the average distance of travel in wards 7 and 8 being a mile-and-a-half,” said Filardo. “They’ve got to figure out their bus routes on routes that were not designed for getting children to school, and because of this, there’s been some really difficult travel situations in wards 5, 7 and 8, where so many of the neighborhood schools have been closed,” Filardo said. “So the children are kind of going all over the place just to get to school, which, of course, results in absences and truancies on all grade levels.”
Meanwhile, chronic absenteeism which leads to truancy, also results in poor classroom performance, low graduation rates – and in many instances, opens the pipeline to prison.
Last school year, 32 percent of DCPS students missed 10 or more days, and 19 percent missed 20 or more days.
Overall, absenteeism with or without parental consent, reportedly led to 40 percent of students having missed at least 18 days in 2012-13, compared to 20 percent who missed 35 days during the same term.
Although the school system is required to report any student who’s missed 10 days without an excuse, that was done last year only in 40 percent of the cases.
Chancellor Kaya Henderson has been hard-pressed to get the numbers down, even if it’s been a few notches at a time.
“Last year [2011-12] our truancy rate was 26 percent and we were shooting this year [2013-14] to reduce it to 22 percent,” said Henderson. “However, we actually got it down to 18 percent, which was a huge win for us,” she said, crediting the Ninth Grade Academy program that launched in 2013.
“The Ninth Grade Academy [which helps first-year 9th- grade students successfully transition to and succeed in high school] has been a tremendous contributor, and we’ve got a number of [initiatives] at the elementary level to deal with truancy and to make our schools more engaging and places where kids want to come,” Henderson, 44, said.“It’s not necessarily how many times you refer kids to the Children and Family Services Agency, it’s making school a place that kids don’t want to miss, so attendance has been a huge focus for us.”
In the meantime, David Catania (I-At Large), chair of the D.C. Council’s Committee on Education who’s also a candidate in the November mayoral election, has been going toe-to-toe with Democratic opponent, Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4), over who would be the best to get priorities in order for the school system.
Both candidates are seeking the mayor’s post at a time when the chancellor’s been under mounting pressure to develop initiatives to deter absenteeism and truancy.
Catania, 46, introduced legislation in 2013 to combat truancy that would have ordered the prosecution of parents of chronically truant children. However, he stripped the measure after considering it might be the wrong approach.
Catania, who believes that parents are key to improving absenteeism and truancy, has also indicated that as parents are being made aware of their obligation for getting their children to school, his staff has begun to see improvement – particularly at the elementary-grade levels.
“Mr. Catania believes strongly that the more class time a student misses the greater the chance that they fall behind,” said Catania’s spokesman, Brendan Kief-Williams. “The councilman has put more money into schools to support more attendance counselors and behavioral health professionals, and continues to be a strident supporter of programs that connect families with teachers and administrators in a positive and supportive manner.”
D.C. turning the corner on special education
The Current Newspapers
By Vincent Gray
September 3, 2014 p. 9
As D.C. Public Schools resumed classes last week, one thing students found is the best special education system that the District has seen in many years. Since the moment I took office in 2011, my administration has worked tirelessly to improve education outcomes for children with disabilities. These efforts have included getting more of our students with disabilities out of far-flung locations and into public schools where they can be educated well with their peers and nearer to their homes. The improvements we have made to public education also include ensuring that children who need special education services are moved more quickly into those programs. Moreover, we’ve seen improvements in the achievement level of students with disabilities. Clear evidence that D.C. is moving in the right direction includes:
■ Standardized reading scores for D.C. fourth-graders with disabilities improved by 6 percentage points between 2011 and 2013 — even as average scores declined by 2 points nationally. Our students’ math scores, meanwhile, improved by 11 points over the same period, while remaining flat nationally (National Assessment of Educational Progress, nces.ed.gov).
■ For the District’s eighth-graders with disabilities, standardized reading scores improved by 8 percentage points between 2011 and 2013, while advancing by just 1 point nationally. Math scores for these students improved by 9 points over the same period, even though the national average fell by one point.
■ In late 2011, on the basis of improved performance, a federal court released D.C. from oversight in the Blackman portion of the Blackman-Jones class action lawsuit. This suit — first brought in 1997 — required that the District respond to parental complaints about the failure to provide special education services in a timely manner, according to federal standards. And the District’s performance related to the Jones portion of the lawsuit, involving timely implementation of Hearing Officer Determinations, demonstrates that we are close to meeting the requirements for exit from that case.
■ In 2012, a federal court released the District from oversight in a 1995 class-action suit, Petties v. D.C., which related to making prompt payments to private schools and getting students with disabilities bused to school on time.
■ The District’s on-time rates for special-education evaluations improved from 67 percent in 2008-2009 to 96 percent currently. Moreover, the rate for timely transition of our students ages birth through 3 from early intervention services into special education improved from 8 percent in 2008-2009 to 98 percent currently.
■ The proportion of the District’s special-education students being educated in non-public settings has been reduced by more than 50 percent — from 2,204 when I first took office to 1,062 currently. This is due to our dramatically increased capacity to serve children in our public schools with quality special education.
■ We have seen a 30 percent reduction in formal complaints by families with children in special education.
These results show we are doing a far better job than we were just a few years ago of ensuring that students with disabilities receive a quality education close to home. This means that, across the District, our children are better prepared for life beyond the classroom.
The D.C. Council is currently considering legislation that some have suggested will improve special education in the District. Many of the proposed changes, though, are already included in existing plans made by our Office of the State Superintendent of Education and will happen regardless of what the council does.
The dramatic improvements in the District’s special education system over the past several years are significant and undeniable. Clearly, we still have more work to do — but that should not prevent us from recognizing the tremendous gains our students and educators have made. After many tumultuous years, we have turned the corner — and we are on the path to ensuring the highest-quality education possible for all students, including those with special needs.
Vincent Gray is mayor of the District of Columbia.