Equity in action: implementing the voluntary resolution plan to eliminate disproportionality in exclusionary discipline in Oakland, California

Abstract

Oakland Unified School District, under pressure from community organizations and the Office for Civil Rights, signed a Voluntary Resolution Plan in September of 2012 to eliminate disproportionality in exclusionary discipline, particularly for African American male students. This plan built on the previous work of Superintendent Tony Smith who had spoken of the “moral imperative” of equity since becoming the first Board appointed superintendent following seven years of state control of the Oakland schools. Now in its second year, the Voluntary Resolution Plan has been highly successful in reducing the overall number of suspension and expulsions in Oakland and is garnering national attention. In my project I had the opportunity to co-lead the VRP team in Oakland with Chris Chatmon, the Executive Director of African American Male Achievement. As co-lead I have had the opportunity to collaborate with leaders across departments as we have designed the next steps of implementation, as well as the ability to lead a listening campaign with principals to better understand the conditions and reality of the work to transform school culture and climate in Oakland. This provided me a unique vantage point to help understand the complex theory of action in play in Oakland, what aspects of that plan have driven positive results so far, and what challenges may lay ahead for the next stages of implementation. This Capstone seeks to add to a growing body of work that suggests that a viable alternative to Zero Tolerance policies exists and calls for additional study of the programs and conditions in Oakland that have led to these positive results. How can we eliminate disproportionality in punitive school discipline for African American students? This question was at the heart of the launch of the Children’s Defense Fund in 1973 and its groundbreaking report, “School Suspensions: Are They Helping Children.” The question remains even more urgent in 2014, when the percentage of African-American students suspended on an annual basis has doubled in the last 38 years and represents a dramatically disproportionate rate of 3.5 times that of white students (U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2012). Not only has progress not been made, but the historical trend towards “Zero Tolerance” discipline policies (Skiba, 2000) has significantly increased the problem. According to Skiba, approximately 95% of suspensions are for minor and non-violent offenses like repeated small disruptions, defiance, or being late to class. The correlative impacts of these suspensions on education and life outcomes are devastating: According to research by Balfanz, Byrnes, & Fox (2013), a student suspended even one time in ninth grade has double the chance of dropping out of school, rising from 16% to 32%. A matched cohort study (Arcia, 2006) found that students who had been suspended even one time fell behind by an additional two years of reading in comparison with the cohort group (over a two year period). In a recent study (Toldson & Ebanks, 2012), black students’ response patterns reflected a dynamic whereby school safety significantly diminished the overall level of empathy and respect that students perceived from teachers, and punishment from teachers significantly reduced students' grades. (Toldson & Lewis, 2012) There is a strong connection between out of school suspension and entry into the juvenile justice system (Losen & Skiba, 2010). In summary, exclusionary discipline results in lower academic performance, a higher dropout rate, and increased entry into the prison system. All of these outcomes have significant costs not just for the individuals involved, but for society as a whole, possibly as high as $750,000 per dropout over a lifetime (Belfield, Levin, & Rosen, 2012). Over the past two decades, promising practices have emerged as alternatives to suspension. These include programs like Positive Behavior Support (PBS) / Positive Behavior Intervention Support (PBIS), and Restorative Justice (RJ), as well as a number of other programs and approaches across the country. Communities across the United States, from Baltimore to Cleveland to Oakland, are attempting to interrupt the punitive dialogue, even as “Zero Tolerance” discipline policies remain the norm and exclusionary school culture work at charter schools gets defined positively as the “new paternalism” (Whitman, 2008). Oakland Unified School District, under the leadership of former superintendent Tony Smith, has emerged as a leader in the pursuit of equity in discipline and a new paradigm around school culture and climate. Working in tandem with the Office for Civil Rights in response to a community report detailing the disproportionate number of suspensions for African-American males in the district (Brown et al., 2012), a Voluntary Resolution Plan (VRP) was drafted and signed in September, 2012 (Appendix A). In addition, as one of the lead authors of the California Office to Reform Education’s (CORE) Waiver Application, Smith helped bring the concept of accountability to the world of school climate by including suspension rate as a factor in the School Quality Improvement System (California Office to Reform Education, 2013). In 2013-2014, OUSD has already started to use suspension rate and disproportionality in the district version of a “Balanced Scorecard” for analyzing school performance (Appendix B) Over the course of the 2013-2014 school year, I had the opportunity to co-lead the committee in charge of implementing the Voluntary Resolution Plan in Oakland. District leadership viewed this as the group responsible for leading the work to transform school culture and climate and eliminate disproportionality in exclusionary discipline in the Oakland Public Schools, a feat that to this date has not been accomplished in any large, diverse urban school district. As I entered the work, my mind was filled with questions. Was the Voluntary Resolution Plan a new blueprint for interrupting what has been dubbed the “school to prison pipeline?” If so, what were the key components? If not, what was missing? Given the Oakland context, what were the vital steps to take in 2013-2014 to set the system up for success in the future? On a personal level, how could I contribute and what could I learn from this experience? On a site and sector level, what could be learned from the VRP work thus far?