This question is taken from a longer questionnaire developed by the ACLU-DC, CARECEN, HIPS, Many Languages One Voice, No Justice No Pride, Stop Police Terror Project-DC, and the Trans United Fund. The questionnaire was sent to all competing in the June 19 Primary for the offices of mayor, attorney general, and D.C. council seats for wards 1, 3, 5, and 6, in addition to one at-large seat and the chair seat.
Black students in the District are 7.7 times more likely to receive an out-of-school suspension than their white peers. There is a wealth of evidence that the practice of suspensions and expulsions sets up students to fail by shutting them out of an education, decreasing their likelihood of graduating, and increasing their likelihood of interaction with the criminal justice system. This is the “school-to-prison pipeline.” What steps would you take to address the school-to-prison pipeline in the District?
See candidates' answers to the entire #ReformDCJustice questionnaire here.
Council Chair Candidates:
Ed Lazere: The legislation adopted this spring to ban most suspensions in DC schools is an incredibly important step to interrupting the school-to-prison pipeline. As it is implemented, we also need to make sure schools have adequate administrative, counseling and mental health staff to support students, and that all school staff be regularly trained in trauma-informed case. I would look to rely more on these staff and reduce use of school resource officers. I support giving all schools the resources needed to implement a restorative justice approach to behavior issues.
Phil Mendelson: Recently the Council adopted legislation to restrict the use of out-of-school suspensions and expulsions. In addition to that, I have worked to reduce truancy levels of our public school students and worked to provide funding for programs that provide our truant students and their families with wraparound services in order to decrease the factors that lead a student to be truant. While many view truancy solely from an educational lens – if a student is not in school he/she cannot learn – I view truancy as an early warning indicator that a student may be heading toward becoming involved in the criminal justice system. This is not to say that truancy is criminal or that all students who are truant will end up involved in the criminal justice system, but most individuals involved in the juvenile justice system and many young adults involved in the criminal justice system have a history of truancy. If we can identify students who are truant and provide them with the services that they need, this should reduce the number of student involved in the criminal justice system and work to address the school to prison pipeline.
At-Large Candidates:
Anita Bonds: Black students in the District are 7.7. times more likely to receive an out-of-school suspension than their white peers. There is a wealth of evidence that the practice of suspensions and expulsions sets up students to fail by shutting them out of an education, decreasing their likelihood of graduating, and increasing their likelihood of interaction with the criminal justice system. This is the “school-to-prison pipeline.” What steps would you take to address the school-to-prison pipeline in the District? I will be a vocal supporter of continuing to fund and actively oversee the implementation of the Student Fair Access to School Amendment Act of 2018. This bill seeks to address the disparate impact that out-of-school suspensions have on African American students and other students of color. I want to see our schools have the resources and support to make sure that students are not removed from school for minor infractions, and taken away from their academic support systems, assignments, and other educational needs.
Jeremiah Lowery: I will introduce a bill to end out of school suspensions in all schools (DCPS and charter) and grade levels within my 1st year in office. I would also look at legislation to direct the DC government to find alternatives to expulsions.
David Schwartzman: This is an enormous problem nationwide, with strong links between racist school disciplinary practices and the fact there are close to 2 million incarcerated adults in the United States. In the District, this issue is particularly acute, with African-Americans making up more than 95 percent of D.C. prisoners. The D.C. Schools must put in place stronger due process protections for students subject to discipline, in particular out of school discipline. No student should be removed from school unless there is absolutely no other alternative. The level of childhood poverty in the District is shockingly high, only slightly lower than Mississippi. Many students are homeless, or come from unstable housing situations. The District needs to focus resources on serving the needs of these children, not remove them from school. Additionally, many children have special developmental needs, requiring treatment not removal from school. Additionally, out of school discipline rates in charter schools are higher than in DC public schools. Charter schools must be held to the same, or stronger, standards as DC public school.
Ward 1 Candidates:
Kent Boese: I fully support the passage of the “Students Fair Access to School Act of 2017” requiring Local Education Agencies (LEAs) to limit the use of out-of-school disciplinary actions; and report, annually, statistics on disciplinary actions taken by individual LEAs to Office of the State Superintendent for Education (OSSE). Removing students from learning environments for prolonged periods of time, especially, our youngest students puts them on a pathway that ultimately leads to students dropping out school at a later age and contact with the justice system. We need to address the root causes of student behavioral problems. Out of school disciplinary action should be only be used in the most serious cases; and even then, students must continue to receive academic instruction and appropriate social services to address their needs.
Brianne K. Nadeau: Last month, when the Council was poised to pass the Student Access to Justice Act, amendments proposed on the dais threatened to weaken the bill. I defeated those amendments and successfully moved my own amendment to strengthen it and ensure that students are not unjustly suspended. This month the Council voted to fund this bill. I was proud to support this effort.
Lori Parker: No effort to eliminate the “school-to-prison pipeline,” no matter how well intentioned, can be successful without actively engaging a child’s parent/guardian in the child’s education – including in matters involving school discipline. Parents need to be better supported in increasing their involvement in educational decisions impacting their children, and no legislation should diminish the role or responsibility of parents in ensuring a child’s educational needs are being met.
As a former magistrate judge in the D.C. Superior Court, where I presided for eight years in the Family Court, I’ve seen first hand how school attendance and parental participation in the educational progress of a child impacts the “school-to-prison-pipeline.” If elected, I would support greater efforts and the funding of evidence-based practices to reduce/eliminate school truancy and to increase parental engagement in our schools.
Ward 5 Candidates:
Bradley Thomas: I would support the creation of a suspension/expulsion court which school administrators would have to go through in order to expel a student or to impose suspensions of more than one day. This court would be staffed by a demographic cross section of child psychologists, educators, social workers and criminal justice experts and the burden of proof would be on the school administrator to show why the expulsion or suspension is justified.
Ward 6 Candidates:
Charles Allen: I co-sponsored the Student Fair Access to School Act of 2018 and was proud to vote in support of the measure when it came to the full Council. The Student Fair Access to School Act is an important bill addressing an important issue. We know that the use of exclusionary discipline disproportionately affects our students of color and contributes to both the achievement gap and the school-to-prison pipeline.As a member of the Education Committee, I believe that working to limit these practices at both our traditional public and charter schools is the right thing to do. As a parent, I also want every child to feel safe and welcome at school. And as the Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, I know that interrupting the school-to-prison pipeline is a matter of equity and justice. Exclusionary discipline practices have not been shown to improve educational outcomes and, all too often, create a cycle between behavior and performance that has detrimental effects for the young person that last a lifetime. In my Committee, I have actively supported additional efforts to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline, including the diversion program Alternatives to the Court Experience (“ACE”). ACE is a collaboration between the Department of Human Services, Court Social Services, the Metropolitan Police Department, the Office of the Attorney General, the Department of Behavioral Health, and community-based service providers. This diversion program is offered to young people who commit status offenses like truancy or low-level delinquency offenses; instead of prosecution, the youth are offered support and behavioral health services that meet their individual needs. ACE approaches the issue from another angle, but this is a problem we must tackle on several fronts. Literacy is another way in which I have approached disrupting the pipeline. I have worked to close the achievement gap in our public schools by supporting early literacy programs, including creating the DC Public Library’s Books From Birth Program. The first bill I introduced as a Councilmember was to create Books From Birth in an effort to close the word gap for children who may have no other access to books in the home before beginning school. In the two years DC Public Library has had the program up and running, we’ve delivered almost 450,000 books to children from birth to age 5 across the District, with 83% of kids in target neighborhoods enrolled, and the program is continuing to grow by 5% per month. As more and more children “graduate” from Books From Birth into our schools, I expect this investment in early literacy will lay the foundation for higher achievement by the students who might otherwise have not had access to books at home and will reap rewards in the public safety context, as well.
Lisa Hunter: A system that lacks uniform definitions of basic punitive actions such as suspensions and expulsions and allows for automatic suspensions to be triggered is inherently unfair and has been shown to be discriminatory. Moreover, when we seek to suspend or expel students for absences, truancy and uniform violations, we are inherently targeting our low-income students who most need our help, and when we remove them from a classroom setting we are causing them to fall further behind. We can begin to address the school-to-prison pipeline in DC by understanding that opportunity gaps and challenges do not begin when a student walks through the classroom door, nor do they end when a student leaves for the day. Students who already face severe disadvantages at home, and in the classroom, do not benefit from increased time away from the school setting where they will not receive opportunities for educational growth. Unfortunately, our city is home to some of the worst racial and economic disparities in the nation. Many of our students in DC face some of the same socioeconomic and behavioral challenges I observed in my students when I taught in the Peace Corps. In my community, Ward 6, we live among some of the wealthiest people in the city, as well as some of the poorest. Our low-income children face health disparities, food insecurity, undiagnosed medical conditions, unstable housing, and many other challenges that our high-performing students never need to think about. Many of our low-income children live with no access to internet, books or school supplies at home, lack a space at home to concentrate on homework, and they are often insufficiently fed, making it even more difficult to concentrate or get a good night of sleep. Many students come to school having experienced trauma or prolonged periods of toxic stress. We have learned from brain science that when students are in a heightened sense of stress response, it is incredibly difficult for them to learn. To inflict arbitrary punishment on these students in the form of suspensions and expulsions simply serves to widen the already staggering achievement gap we see in our city. We need to focus less on punitive responses in school, and instead commit to adequately funding health, housing and human services programs so we can solve the underlying disparities that are at the root cause of these problems. Moreover, I am increasingly troubled by the extent to which our schools continue to discriminate and police the bodies of our female students based on what they wear. The National Women’s Law Center recently issued a study on dress code policies at DC schools, finding evidence of gender and racial discrimination in the ways the rules are enforced. I have no tolerance for harmful policies that reinforce gender and racial stereotypes, and only serve to take students out of the classroom and widen the opportunity gap. We cannot possibly expect our youth to be successful when the standards we hold them to are flawed, discriminatory and serve to deny them of the education that they deserve.
Attorney General Candidate:
Karl Racine: I have instituted several successful reforms to maintain the safety of District residents while prioritizing keeping nonviolent youth offenders out of the criminal justice system so that they have a better chance to live safe, productive and successful lives. Informed by data on what works to promote these goals, OAG ended the blanket practice of juvenile shackling in court proceedings, increased diversions of low‑level juvenile offenders to the ACE (Alternatives to the Court Experience) program; launched a restorative justice program using trained, in‑house staff; launched a pilot anti‑truancy program and prioritized other initiatives to keep students in school, launched an initiative to combat human trafficking. In addition, I have used my position to highlight District youth who have overcome significant challenges and are showing self‑improvement through OAG’s annual Right Direction Awards. I am committed to creatively building on this public‑health, prevention‑focused approach to reducing youth crime and breaking the school‑to‑prison pipeline.