One DC charter school makes no apologies for suspensions

Although expulsions in charter schools decreased last year, short-term suspensions were slightly up. At one high-achieving middle school, DC Prep’s Edgewood campus, almost half the students received one-day suspensions. But the school says the disciplinary strategy is part of its formula for success.

Statistics recently released by the Public School Charter Board show a 27% decrease in expulsions at charter schools last year compared to the year before. Long-term suspensions, defined as 11 days or more, held steady at 0.3%. But one-day suspensions increased slightly, with 5 schools reporting that a quarter or more of their students received the punishment. Is that a problem? At least one school says it isn’t.

DC Prep’s Edgewood Middle Campus (EMC), one of the District’s highest-performing charters, gave 47% of its students at least one one-day suspension last year. That’s significantly higher than the average for the charter sector: 7%, up from 6.5% last year.

Generally, middle schools in DC have higher suspension rates than elementary or high schools. Charter middle schools had an average short-term suspension rate of 13.8% last year, almost twice the charter-wide average.

DCPS does not break down its figures into short- and long-term suspension, but the overall suspension rate in DCPS last year was about 14%. And the 14 DCPS middle schools seem to suspend students in greater numbers. In 2011-12, only one middle school had a suspension rate below 20%. (That one was Deal, in Ward 3, with 7%). Some recorded more suspensions than students, indicating that some students had been suspended repeatedly.

Suspensions and academic quality

It’s not clear that suspension rates have any relationship to overall academic quality. The PCSB found very little correlation between a school’s suspension rate and its performance on DC’s standardized tests, the DC CAS. The PCSB also identified 5 charter schools that, like EMC, have a disciplinary policy that combines a high rate of short-term suspensions with zero long-term suspensions. Those schools include 3 that were high-performing, one that is middling, and one that was troubled and closed last year.

DC Prep’s CEO, Rick Cruz, says that his school’s use of one-day suspensions is actually a crucial factor in its academic success, in combination with other aspects of its approach to instilling what it calls “social skills.” (Other schools might use the term “character education” or “social-emotional learning.”)

“We have a very evolved set of expectations tied to both rewards and discipline,” Cruz says.

On the reward side, students earn “dollars” for exhibiting positive behaviors, such as being respectful to teachers and fellow students. They can put that ersatz money into the bank and spend it on treats from the school store, or the right to go on field trips.

But negative behaviors—like responding inappropriately to a teacher or fellow student, or not being prepared for class—result in an escalating series of consequences, culminating in a one-day suspension. Many students get a one-day suspension once a year, Cruz says. The school tries to make its expectations clear and is consistent in enforcing consequences when they aren’t met.

Cruz says that the suspensions are crucial to maintaining an environment that’s focused on academic achievement, without the distractions caused by disruptive students. He also says the suspensions help students internalize the school’s behavior code, so they’ll be able to abide by it even after they’ve moved on and don’t have DC Prep teachers around to enforce it.

DC Prep’s EMC serves about 300 students in grades 4 through 8. Cruz says the rate of suspensions is roughly even across all grade levels.

Students who receive even brief suspensions necessarily miss out on some instruction, but Cruz points to DC Prep’s track record of academic achievement to argue that the missed class time doesn’t impede their progress. EMC was the District’s highest-performing charter school on last year’s DC CAS , with 79% of students testing proficient in reading and 92% in math. And Cruz says that last year 28% of its graduates were offered admission at DCPS’s highly selective School Without Walls.

Expulsions and transfers

On the other hand, students who can’t or won’t conform to EMC’s high standards are occasionally forced to leave: one student was expelled in each of the last two years. And it’s possible that others are choosing to leave because they see expulsion coming. The school has a pretty high rate of re-enrollment, 89%. But that only measures students who return from one year to the next. Just under 3%, or about 8 of the school’s students, chose to leave mid-year in 2012-13.

The reasons for those transfers aren’t clear, but some have suggested that charter school students sometimes choose to transfer out mid-year to avoid expulsion and end up in DCPS. In 2011-12, the most recent year for which figures are available, 284 students left charter schools mid-year and enrolled in DCPS. That translates into a rate of just under one percent. While EMC’s transfer rate is almost triple that, it’s difficult to make the comparison. Middle schools may have a higher transfer rate than the average for all grades, and some of EMC’s transfers may have simply moved out of the area.

Not everyone takes as sanguine a view of suspensions as DC Prep does. A report by an advocacy group released in June decried the suspension rate in DC’s public schools, including both the DCPS and charter sectors. The report urged schools to adopt disciplinary strategies that don’t remove students from class, arguing that kids who received suspensions were more likely to drop out, have weak academic skills, and become involved with the juvenile justice system.

How to square that with DC Prep’s experience? One clue might be that the advocacy group’s report lumped all suspensions that were 10 days or less into the same category. (The PCSB’s provides statistics for one-day suspensions and suspensions of 11 days or more. Suspensions that last from 2 to 10 days are factored into the overall figure for all students with at least one out-of-school suspension, 14.5%.) In terms of lost instructional time, there’s a big difference between a suspension that lasts one day and one that lasts 10.

And of course, the fact that there’s a correlation between suspensions and things like involvement with the juvenile justice system doesn’t prove cause and effect. It doesn’t take a statistician to figure out that the kids who get suspended might be the same kids who are also likely to find themselves in trouble in other ways. In fact, it’s possible that in some instances their behavior would have been worse if they hadn’t been suspended.

Another explanation might be that DC Prep uses suspension not just as an isolated punishment but as part of a comprehensive approach to creating a school culture and instilling behavioral norms. When a student returns from a suspension, for example, the school holds a “re-entry meeting” with the child and his or her parents. “We explain that it’s not meant to be punitive,” Cruz says. “It’s an opportunity for reflection.”

So the mere fact that a school suspends a lot of its students, or doesn’t, won’t tell you much about its academic quality or its atmosphere. As with so many things in education, it all depends on how it’s done.