UFT: Suspension not only solution to discipline problems

With the overall number of student suspensions on the rise, UFT Vice President Richard Farkas joined City Council members in faulting the Department of Education for “an overreliance on suspension for disciplining New York City public students.”

At a Council Education Committee hearing on Nov. 30, Farkas testified that “students would be better served by less emphasis on discipline and a greater emphasis on prevention and intervention.”

Farkas also shared the concern of others, including the New York Civil Liberties Union, that special needs students and black and Latino students are much more likely to be suspended from school. Black students, for example, represent one third of the student population, but receive more than half of the school suspensions.

“The DOE owes the public and the parents an explanation for the disproportionate impact that school discipline has on students of color and students with disabilities,” Farkas said. 

Farkas also reiterated the UFT’s long-held concern about the consequences of concentrating high-needs students in certain schools. 

“We also need to know whether the students with the greatest needs are being placed in environments without the proper supports that create the perfect storm for infractions in zero tolerance settings,” he said.

Farkas argued that the move away from a more holistic approach to school safety was due at least in part to the relentless focus on testing and test prep. 

“As long as 85 percent of the school’s grades are based on standardized tests, we will continue to see these high rates of suspension,” he said.

Farkas argued that suspensions were a “reactive tactic” that did not address the root causes of disruptive behavior. He urged Council members to instead back programs which obviate suspensions by “keeping the focus on learning and on counseling through such initiatives as support for active peer mediation, gang prevention and conflict resolution programs. These programs and services were once a significant presence.”

He also said that using SAVE rooms and Alternative Learning Centers as alternatives to a superintendent suspension served at home had the advantage of “keeping the focus on learning and on counseling” while making the move back to the classroom easier because students have not lost study time.

Farkas cited M.S. Esperanza, the Tito Puente School, as a model of a school with a high number of special-needs and low-income students, including many recent immigrants, but with a school culture that places a premium on safety and respect and has a systematic process for helping students make the transition from the SAVE room back to class.

Farkas also challenged DOE suspension data for its silence on whether students serving superintendent suspensions are keeping up with their school work. 

“Is there a plan for transitioning them back to class when suspensions end? Are counseling personnel — guidance counselors, social workers, school psychologists — assigned for follow up and support? Is there a balance between the purely punitive and using an intervention as a learning and behavior change opportunity?” 

Those are the questions that the DOE should ask of schools with rising suspension rates, Farkas said.

Read Farkas’ full testimony >>