Education

Researchers studying school discipline in Ohio found “exclusionary school disciplinary measures,” that disproportionately impacted students of color, along with disabled and lower income children.

Children’s Defense Fund Ohio released a 2024 “state of school discipline in Ohio” report, analyzing measures like out-of-school suspensions and expulsions, saying the practices “have been identified as factors contributing to Ohio’s community-to-prison pipeline that puts far too many children and young people on a pathway to incarceration.”

Dr. John Stanford, director of CDF-Ohio

“The discipline rates for Ohio’s students are trending in the wrong direction, especially for our middle-school and high-school students and students of color,” CDF-Ohio State Director Dr. John Stanford said in announcing the report’s findings.

In the report, released March 12, researchers found an increase in out-of-school suspensions and expulsions in every grade, from kindergarten through 12th grade, from the 2021-22 school year to the 2022-23 year.

“Students who are economically disadvantaged comprised 83% of all out-of-school suspensions handed out in Ohio public schools in 2022-2023,” the report found.

The study mentioned the state’s high chronic absenteeism rate as part of the issue plaguing school districts. The authors of the study said school discipline “cannot be separated from Ohio’s alarmingly high chronic absenteeism rates, defined as any student missing more than 10% of the school year for any reason.

“Exclusionary punishments prevent students from accessing valuable in-person learning and essential services that support their overall well-being, further widening the gap for those who need these services the most,” according to the CDF-Ohio report.

The problem of chronic absenteeism has been plaguing Ohio schools for years, which bipartisan sponsors of a bill attempting to stem the issue recognized in a January hearing introducing a proposed two-year pilot program that would pay students to incentivize good attendance at school.

The bill’s co-sponsor, state Rep. Dani Isaacsohn, D-Cincinnati, called chronic absenteeism “the number one issue we are facing in education.”

Fellow co-sponsor, Cincinnati Republican state Rep. Bill Seitz, said local leaders have tried all kinds of methods to get kids in school, but a concept like pizza day or similar tactics  to get kids in schools “doesn’t seem to work.”

The most recent data from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce showed chronic absenteeism for high school freshman at 31% in the last school year. Kindergarteners considered chronically absent were registered at 29% for the same school year.

Overall, 26,8% of students in the state were chronically absent in 2022-2023.

This data comes even after a 2018 law prohibited the out-of-school suspension or expulsion of students from pre-K through third grade for “minor offenses.” Full implementation of the prohibition was phased in through the bill, to be completed in the 2021-2022 school year.

Though the numbers of disciplinary actions in that age group has dropped since the enactment of the law – from more than 31,000 occurrences in the 2018-19 school year, down to 10,048 in the 2021-22 school year, CDF-Ohio researchers said “the full intent of the act has yet to be fully realized.”

Citing ODEW data, the report found almost 2,000 “exclusionary discipline occurrences for PK-3rd graders for behavior that is not exempt.”

In the 2022-23 school year, pre-K through third-grade out-of-school suspensions and expulsions rose slightly, to 12,025.

In terms of overall school discipline causing absences, the Children’s Defense Fund-Ohio study found black male students were 4.3 times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers, and black female students were six times more likely to be disciplined with suspension or expulsion than their white peers.

Black students represented 39.7 per 100 students with “discipline occurrences,” the study found, while disabled students receiving suspension or expulsion accounted for 22.2 of every 100 students, and students considered economically disadvantaged saw 21.5 occurrences per 100 students.

“In 2022-2023 school year, there were 174,000 total suspension or expulsion occurrences of students who qualify as economically disadvantaged, compared to only 35,000 of students who do not qualify as economically disadvantaged,” the study stated.

The report recommended more funding for educators and investigations into “unnecessary exclusionary discipline,” along with community engagement and policy that targets all of the impacts on children, even outside of educational goals.

“If we continue to measure how well children surmount barriers rather than address the barriers themselves, we will continue to fall short in creating the supportive, safe and welcoming environments that all children deserve,” according to the report.

As part of the recommendations made in the CDF-Ohio report, researchers said the 2018 law that prohibited suspensions and expulsions for pre-K through grade 3 students should be expanded, since it has been “largely successful in reducing out-of-school discipline occurrences” for those grade levels.

“Ohio lawmakers should expand the number of grade levels included in this provision to extend the protections to all students, especially all elementary-age students,” the study recommended.

Further funding for school counselors and “other social and emotional supports” were also listed as key items to improve exclusionary practices.