Opinion: Looking into suspensions

No child can learn in an environment that tolerates fellow students who act out, create trouble or engage in violence. To control their classrooms, teachers have to be given the freedom to impose proportional punishment, including suspensions.

But what happens when, as is the case in Pinellas County and many other school districts, black children are suspended at a disproportionate rate?

While such disparities are disturbing, we shouldn't jump to the conclusion that racism and discrimination are to blame, nor should we rule those factors out. The fact that black students make up nearly 37 percent of the suspensions in Pinellas schools yet account for only 18 percent of student enrollment raises questions that deserve further examination.

That scrutiny is coming. As a result of the settlement reached between the Pinellas County School Board and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund that put an end to the decades-long desegregation case, racial disparities in student suspension rates will be tracked more closely than ever. A committee of teachers, administrators, students, parents and NAACP members will meet twice a year to review the numbers in an effort to understand why the rate of black student suspension remains stubbornly high. The committee will also be reviewing innovations in places where the student suspension rate is low, to see if those schools use programs that can be successfully replicated.

This process will have to be done with thoroughness and sensitivity, but also with honesty. Teachers deserve wide discretion to deal with discipline problems, and they should know their administrators will back up their judgments. It is a mistake to assume that disparity always equals discrimination. The problem is more complex than that, and Pinellas is on the right track in searching for answers and solutions.

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