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Students Lived Experience
Offsetting Racial Divides:
Zero-Tolerance School Suspensions & Restorative Justice Practices
A Post-Suspension Reality of Exclusionary Discipline
"Michael"
Michael, a 20-year-old Black male, shares his experience of returning to school after two ten-day zero-tolerance school suspensions. He recalls exclusion from instruction, difficulties in catching up on assignments, and challenges in accessing support.
The consequences of Michael's suspensions excluded him from:
school-based counseling
after-school tutoring
track
This 20-day suspension portrays a small fraction of the millions of school days missed due to school suspensions. In 2017-18, suspended students missed 11 million school days. Black students accounted for almost 5 million of those days.
Current OCR data reports on race only.
Illuminating these concerns the U.S. Department of Education reports that students who miss at least 15 days are at greater risk of dropping out of high school. However, Black students continue to be overrepresented in suspensions and reveal a call of action to transform exclusionary discipline.
So, what are the experts saying?
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