Teachers question suspension policy

By Pablo Lopez, The Fresno Bee

For two years, the Fresno Unified School District has slashed its suspension rates — saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in state attendance money by keeping unruly students on campus instead of sending them home.

Now teachers are complaining that the approach has had an unintended cost: An increase in attacks on school staff.

Three years ago, Fresno Unified suspended 26,265 students for things like fighting, drug possession and bullying. This year there were fewer than 10,000 suspensions, school officials believe, although they still are tallying the exact figure.

During the same period, the number of attacks on nonteaching staff grew to 97 from 56, district records show. The number of attacks on teachers declined slightly, to 74 from 75. Meanwhile, district enrollment declined to 76,236 from 80,670.

Teachers want the district to place stricter controls on students who stay on campus instead of being sent home. The program is for “transition students” — middle- and high-school students who commit nonviolent offenses such as cursing, smoking and stealing.

“The feeling around the district is that kids know they can get away with anything,” said Greg Gadams, president-elect of the Fresno Teachers Association.

Teachers also want to have some say over which students are allowed to participate in the program, Gadams said.

District officials say they still are working out the kinks, but the program is necessary because many suspended students have no parental support at home.

“Our goal is to change their behavior,” Assistant Superintendent Mabel Franks said.

The district’s traditional policy of sending suspended students home turned out to be a vacation for them, Franks said. At home, suspended students often were left alone, weren’t required to do studies, and had time to get in trouble with police.

Instead, they are in classrooms isolated from the rest of the student body and under strict supervision, she said. They do classwork and are given counseling on how to cope with classmates, build relationships with their teachers and think about their actions.

Fresno Unified receives about $32 a day in state funding for every student who attends school. The district loses money every time it suspends students and sends them home, Franks said.

District records show that 7,567 students were suspended between July 1 and April 30 this year. Those students served a total of 29,041 days of suspension. At $32 a day in state funding, that means the district lost $929,312.

But there were twice as many suspensions — 16,820 — in the previous school year.

Fresno Unified teachers have valid concerns, because campus violence is underreported, said Joe Parks, an education professor at California State University, Fresno.

Parks said a significant drop in suspensions indicates the district is trying to protect its attendance money.

Because campus violence is so common, Parks said he supports the traditional method of suspending disruptive students and sending them home.

“If you get rid of the bad apples, teachers will have more time to devote to the kids who want to learn,” he said. “Suspend the bad kids and let their parents and police worry about them.”

Gadams said teachers would support the program if the district was committed to it. But he said substitute teachers often are in charge of the transition students.

Franks concedes the program had a rough start two years ago, because the district was late in filling teaching positions for transition students. She said she welcomes teachers’ comments about campus safety.