School, Family & Community Partnerships Safe and Supportive Schools Resolution SFUSD

We Need Your Help! No student or adult should feel unsafe or unable to focus in school, yet this is too often a reality. Simply relying on suspensions and expulsions, however, is not the answer to creating a safe and productive school environment. Unfortunately, a significant number of students are removed from class each year — even for minor infractions of school rules — due to exclusionary discipline practices, which disproportionately impact students of color and students with disabilities.

What Do the Numbers Say? Suspensions by Grade Grade Change K % % % % % % Elementary % % % % Middle % % % % % High % 5th YR Senior 0 4 Total %

What does this mean…. In , African American students comprised 46.0% of all suspensions and 41.1% of students (unduplicated) with suspensions, though only 10.5% of the student population. While the number of suspensions and students suspended decreased over the two-year period, as a percent of all suspensions and suspended students, for African American students there was an increase to 49.8% and 44.0% respectively, while the African American student population decreased to 9.7% of the total. The dominant reason for these suspensions involved violence, sometimes accompanied by property damage. Further, the African American students’ share of infractions involving violence increased by about 10% during the period. In the past, African American students didn’t seem to be disproportionately targeted for the ‘subjective’ offenses, such as disruption and willful defiance, given that they had nearly half of all suspensions. However, the most recent figures suggest an increase of about 13% in suspensions for subjective infractions over the two year period. It is also possible that some actions that may be considered ‘Disruption’ when committed by some students is categorized as ‘Violence’ when committed by an African American student.

Reflection What do you see as the benefits of School, Family & Community Partnerships?

Safe and Supportive Schools Resolution In partnership with educators, union representatives, parents, students and other key stakeholders will establish a tiered behavioral discipline matrix, aligned with Response to Intervention, Restorative Practices, and Trauma Informed Practices Regularly collect and analyze discipline data and sharing it with the school to inform disciplinary practices and procedures; A structure for providing training and support about trauma informed practices, the need for behavior de-escalation and implicit bias and stereotype, and Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, Transgender, Queer sensitivity, and other cultural competency training in order to help all staff more effectively respond to and prevent behavior issues from escalating; Set measurable outcomes and benchmarks for decreasing the number of students for each subgroup that are referred to the office, suspended, involuntarily transferred, or expelled.

Safe and Supportive Schools RPRTIPBIS “For children to learn to their full potential, and for us to make inroads in reducing dropout rates, students need to feel safe at, supported by, and connected to their schools.”- TOM TORLAKSON State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Behavioral Action Team (BAT) Team members consist of:  RP coaches,  PBIS coaches,  Peer Resources,  Pupil Services Head Counselors  Administrators,  CWALs,  Family Liaisons,  Social workers  Nurses  Special Education.

So How DO We Help???? We can help provide the following to staff, students and families: Clear Goals and Expected Outcomes: In universal behavior supports, three to five behavior expectations are identified that describe how students should interact with others (e.g., be respectful, be responsible, be safe; Horner et al., 2005). Appropriate Instruction: Students are presented information on behavior expectations, including examples of appropriate and inappropriate behavior so that students clearly understand the concept being taught. Students are then provided with opportunities to practice appropriate behavior to build fluency. Monitoring: Frequent monitoring allows school personnel to intervene early to correct errors and encourage students to continue correct responding. Positive Feedback and Encouragement: The benefit of a tangible acknowledgment system is that it helps to prompt staff to acknowledge students and makes the acknowledgment more apparent for the students. Correcting Errors: Review teaching of the expectations, and reinforce students for engaging in appropriate behavior before providing negative consequences for inappropriate behavior (Sugai, Horner, & McIntosh, 2008). Support Staff: Developing Systems Capacity: Building leadership team membership includes the building administrator and a representative group of individuals (i.e., teachers across grades and support staff). The members of this team should have leadership capacity to support the staff in implementing effective practices with fidelity.

Here’s Why  Required in IDEA 2004  Builds positive relationships  Encourages new behaviors  Reinforces skills (maintenance)  Increases self-satisfaction and optimism among youth, parents, and teachers

Next Steps Please take the time to complete the survey. Encourage your schools to provide workshops, videotapes or computerized phone messages on parenting and child rearing, and to publicize community programs on nutrition, family literacy and adult education. Participate in neighborhood meetings to help families understand schools and to help schools understand families.