MANHATTAN —Suspensions continue to drop at city schools, Department of Education officials announced Friday.
The 12,000 suspensions from July through December 2016 were 5.7 percent lower than the same time the year before, according to DOE data.
DOE officials credit the city’s focus on preventive approaches and “restorative” practices, addressing the underlying causes of conflicts and reinforcing positive behaviors. The city is investing more than $47 million a year to support mental health programs and other interventions. The DOE hired 100 school-based mental health consultants and provided nearly 50 schools with additional mental health supports.
With additional funding from City Council, the DOE is providing training and on-site coaching at 25 schools that have historically high suspension rates.
Officials acknowledged that racial disparities in suspensions persist and they are working to address this concern.
“Nothing is more important than students feeling safe and supported at school, and we are encouraged by the steady decline in suspensions and incidents across the city,” Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina said in a statement. “We have added guidance counselors, social workers and school-based mental health experts, and are providing targeted supports to schools that have historically high suspension rates to implement proactive and effective interventions to keep students in the classroom where they can learn.”
Yet, despite the falling suspension rate, a recent report from the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, questioned whether the discipline reform was making kids feel safer.
Looking at responses on the NYC School Surveys that students, parents and teachers fill out, schools serving at least 90 percent black and Hispanic students, for instance, saw that physical fighting became more frequent during that time period for half of the schools involved. Mutual respect deteriorated at 58 percent of these schools, the report found.
“School order is ultimately not the product of the number of students suspended but rather of classroom culture,” the report states.
“De Blasio told teachers that if they wanted to suspend a student, they had to ask their principal to apply in writing to the central office and have the central office approve that request,” the report wrote.
“Students, especially those prone to disruptive behavior, were likely aware that there was a district-wide suspension-reduction initiative afoot and may have felt greater license to push boundaries.”
In addition to a drop in suspensions, the city is also seeing a drop in school-based arrests and summonses.
The school safety division reported that criminal incidents were down 7 percent in first half of the 2015-16 school year compared to the year before.
