Suspensions and Expulsions

Suspensions and Expulsions: The Push and Pull of School Discipline

There’s something particularly scary about being excluded, being alone, being asked to leave. Being pushed out of a school, for many students, is an experience of being judged, rejected and socially isolated. Being asked to leave school seems to not come in a flash, but after a buildup of tension between a student and authority figures within the school. Functionally, what this means is students are often waiting in limbo for what feels inevitable – a demand from the school that the student leaves, whether it be for the day, or the year, or for good. While waiting for the official verdict, the students often experience deteriorating relationships both between themselves and the adults in the school and between themselves and their peers. These dynamics can foster a sense of mutual distrust and disregard between the students who are soon to be pushed out and the administration that is soon to ask them to leave.

Several of the youth that participate in discussion sessions hosted by the Denver Healing Generations (DHG) organization pointed out that navigating the school system from their cultural and social positionality had been no easy task. In fact, many of the discussion participants had experienced being pushed out of a school, and noted that prior to their punishment, they were already experiencing day-to-day circumstances that made it difficult for them to manage their school affairs. The organization that hosted the discussion that provided the content for this article believes that systemic racism lies at the heart of many of the difficulties experienced by youth in public schools and think that utilizing a ‘la cultura cura’ framework will provide better and more sustainable solutions to addressing problems faced by these young people.

Often, instead of the cultural cures proposed by DHG, schools implement traditional forms of discipline like expulsion or suspension to address student behavior. Schools sometimes suspend or expel students for academic concerns stemming from chronic absences or tardiness or more serious infractions like fighting teachers or other students. Several students that had gotten into trouble noted that their behavior could only be correctly understood when considered alongside the larger context of their lives. Nonetheless, they believe that administrators feel that the schools have the duty to protect their students and faculty and exercise discretion over who is allowed to attend the school.

Experiencing a Reputation

Students who have had a number of run-ins with school administrators often build a reputation that both precedes them and creates a sort of notoriety. Students who have experienced this type of dynamic felt that too often, authority figures make decisions based on their reputation and often ignore what is actually happening on a day-to-day basis. This reputation focused approach to discipline can lead faculty and administrators to be acutely aware of the student’s behavior and eager to intervene at early stages, sometimes even preemptively, due to fear of what the student may do based on rumors. Not only does that create an environment where the student feels that they are being constantly watched, they often feel that the surveillance is harsh and unjust. When framed in this light, it seems quite understandable that students wouldn’t be receptive to initiatives meant to pursue justice dispensed by the school. If the system is rigged, so to speak, incentives for participating in good faith are not particularly compelling.

One student who had been handcuffed and detained by police for a school fight noted that the looks she received from her peers when being hauled away, have stayed with her. From that moment on, she felt like many of her peers treated her differently. She thought the involvement of police officers in a simple school fight was a bit extreme and, in part, was an effort to criminalize what they believed to be normal teenage conflict. From their perspective, schools often lack the ability to reasonably create a gradient scale which allows them to appropriately respond to conflict amongst students, especially if those interactions involve physical contact. It seems that she wanted the school to be able to differentiate between conflicts that involved some disorder and pushing and shoving, from those that resulted in significant damage.

Experiencing Surveillance and Discipline

We often take for granted the idea that one ought to be presumed innocent until proven guilty but fail to make that true in practice, particularly for those who have committed some type of prior offense. In an effort to promote school safety, school systems often utilize a system of surveillance where students are treated as perpetual suspects who must be constantly watched because they are searching for an opportunity to commit some type of offense. If one is never able to begin upon a redemption arc, there may seem to be no point in trying to demonstrate good behavior or change in attitude. Students who have previously been in significant trouble seem to crave some means for having their development accounted for and reflected in how they are treated. This may be especially true for teenagers who can come to feel that no matter what they do, they will always be the proverbial ‘bad guy’. One young man noted that his school essentially put him under perpetual surveillance after he had gotten in trouble for fighting with a faculty member. He was accompanied by an adult for all activities within the school, including eating lunch and going to the bathroom. Over time, this system of surveillance wore on him, making him feel as though he wasn’t really a part of the school community but rather that he was a threat to the safety of the community that needed to be carefully monitored.

Another young lady who was searched every day noted that although she was searched by female staff, the constant touching made her feel uncomfortable. And perhaps more importantly, she was frustrated by the notion that she couldn’t reject the physical contact. What she encouraged instead of constant surveillance and skepticism was the development of a sort of trust between herself and the school’s faculty. She said that if given the opportunity she was willing to be honest if she had done something wrong and was also willing to obey the existing rules. As she put it, “As far as the searching, patting down and stuff, I get it. I know it’s necessary to see if we have anything on us, but low-key, I feel like when I get patted down, I get uncomfortable.”

One student noted that it was frustrating to continue to be searched every day despite showing no signs of causing trouble after a previous incident where they had fought a teacher. Although she acknowledged that this incident was a serious threat to the sense of safety in her school community, it was unclear to her what she would have to do to demonstrate that she now understood that such behavior was unacceptable. Another student noted that it was upsetting to be asked to remove his shirt routinely in order to address possible gang affiliations. Those in charge of securing the school routinely made him take off his shirt, and the justification was that his clothing made him “look like a gang member.” His friend jokingly said that over the course of the semester, the school had confiscated nearly half his closet.

Without the ability to dialogue, those tasked with security can miscomprehend the situation and become overly punitive. For instance, one time she recalled that once she was in a bathroom stall with another student, but they weren’t doing anything wrong, just chatting. However, she happened to have a lighter on her and that was confiscated, but her intention was not to smoke with the lighter, rather she used it to light sage. As she put it,  “they caught us at the wrong time. I forgot two girls weren’t supposed to be in the same stall. They took my lighter, but that’s what I used to burn my sage.”

Schools sometimes attempt to intervene before incidents which would result in traditional discipline occur, however, these efforts to intervene often left students feeling unheard and unsupported. One student noted that she felt unsafe in a justice-circle meeting meant to help her work out issues she was having with a group of girls in the school. She noted that in her school, these restorative justice circles often result in fights, and that she felt she was made unsafe and that the issue wasn’t even resolved. As she put it, “They put things in place that don’t mean shit, that don’t do anything and they’re like ‘oh we’re trying here’…. we need something that’s actually going to help. We try to come up with things, but they don’t listen to us.” In fact, all of the students acknowledged the ineffectiveness of many school-offered solutions to the social dynamics which often result in fights and arguments.

Experiencing Isolation

Although all of these reasons make the experience of expulsion or suspension difficult for students, it seems that the most difficult element may be the feeling of isolation. One student noted that prior to getting suspended she already felt quite alone having moved to a new school where she was having trouble acclimating to a new social climate, making friends, getting to know teachers, and so on. A rumor was circulated by some other students at the school that left her feeling even further marginalized and isolated. As she put it, “I was new at the school and she had been there since middle school. I had nobody and I still have nobody and last year it got worse.”

Another student described her frustration with being suspended from school and having to spend her days still accomplishing school work but without the opportunity to have any meaningful social engagement during the day. As she pointed out, almost all kids are in school during the day, so if one is removed from school, there are not many opportunities to engage in social activities. “I’m a person that doesn’t like being home all day. I’m an only child, so I have nothing to do. So that’s the only way I can get human interaction,“ she said.

If the purpose of suspension and expulsion as discipline is to be a corrective measure, it is unclear that those experiencing this as a form of punishment find it to be particularly useful. Especially telling was the fact that all those who had previously gotten into trouble had crafted actionable plans to avoid these types of problems going forward and made no mention of how the suspension had helped them along in that journey. Many of these kids want to be able to stay in school and exist alongside their peers as a typical student but felt ill-equipped to comport their behavior in a way that was acceptable in a school setting.

Many of the students set goals for their personal behavior that would make it easier to incorporate them into social groups and the overall school setting. Much of the discussion had to do with developing strategies for internal emotional regulation as to allow opportunities for deescalation regarding conflict. Perhaps a more fitting form of discipline involves not simply removing children from the school but equipping them with the tools to handle the social environment in the school. As one student pointed out, school, like jail, is an extremely difficult social environment to navigate.