The First R of the Grammar of School Discipline: Removal

• In Event: The Grammar of School Discipline in Alabama

Abstract

Purpose. Exclusionary discipline has deleterious effects on students, families, and communities, especially communities of Color (Skiba, Arredondo, and Williams 2014; US Department of Education 2018; USGAO 2018). We highlight increased use of exclusionary consequences for what may once have been considered normal student (mis)behavior and for student conduct misinterpreted as misbehavior. We take interest in ways that students are punished via exclusionary practices for (mis)perceived incidents and the ways that Black students, in particular, are affected by these practices.

Perspectives. Many students are removed from Alabama classrooms and schools every day, sometimes for many days (OCR n.d.; PARCA 2020). Removal occurs when students are suspended, in school or outside of school; expelled for a semester or more; and referred to alternative schools (Authors 2017). Removal also happens when students are referred to law enforcement officials, arrested, and taken out of classrooms for corporal punishment for school-based incidents (OCR 2016).
Extant research supports distinguishing between incident labels that are defined as objective and subjective, or “vaguely defined, more open to individual interpretation, and dependent on the tolerance and perceptions of the adult who is witnessing and reporting the behavior” (Theriot and Dupper 2010, 207; emphasis added). It has been widely reported that incidents considered subjective are disproportionately assigned to students of Color, particularly Black students, accounting for much of the racial disparities in school discipline in the U.S. (Annamma, Handy, Miller, and Jackson 2020; Forsyth, Biggar, Forsyth, and Howat 2015; Girvan, Gion, McIntosh, and Smolkowski 2017; Gregory, Bell, and Pollock 2014; Public Counsel 2015; Skiba et al. 2014).

Modes of inquiry and data sources. We analyzed school incident data for the 2015-2016 academic year. The Alabama State Department of Education gave us detailed reports that evidence of the relationships between types of disciplinary incidents and consequences. The Office of Civil Rights issued reports detailing relationships among student demographics and disciplinary consequences. We describe types of exclusionary discipline and the consequences thereof, the incidents for which they were used, and how its use disproportionately affected Black students.

Conclusions. Schools are removing vast numbers of students across the state of Alabama from instruction and social interaction with their teachers and peers for incidents related to subjective perceptions about their behavior. Moreover, available data also indicate that every category of exclusionary discipline is used disproportionately against Black students in Alabama.

Significance. Taken together, the disproportionate assignment of disciplinary incidents to Black students and the ratcheting up of exclusionary disciplinary consequences has created a culture of removal of Black students. The devastating effects of this removal are clear for Black students (Losen 2014; Losen and Gillespie 2012) and for the students who share classrooms and schools with students who are removed (American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force 2008; Losen and Skiba 2010; Mitchell and Bradshaw 2013). Thus, exclusionary discipline practices are not just detrimental to the students and families directly affected by them. They are also damaging to the broader school community.

Author

• Nicholas Paul Triplett, University of North Carolina - Charlotte