In a stark presentation, Assistant Superintendent Julie Varnam told board members the district is the only one in the state with a “significant disproportionate” number of out-of-school suspensions (OSS) for Black students — including those with disabilities.
Varnam said the district’s Black students are six times more likely to be suspended than their peers. She said this points to the subjectivity of the suspensions. Data show that 56% of OSS are for things like inappropriate behavior, defiance, and disrespect, which, according to Varnam, means these reasons could be subject to racial bias.
[Note: You can find Varnam's presentation at the end of this article.]
Varnam reported the district is out of compliance with federal rules for the disproportionality of Black students being suspended, and it’s cost them about $4.5 million from the exceptional children program over the last five years.
Varnam explained in her presentation, the disparity has caused a federal sanction, requiring that 15% of IDEA grant funding be set aside to try and “address the factors contributing to the disproportionality and may not be used toward the overall services of the EC [special needs] program.”
Past funding lost to sanctions cannot be recouped, and in order to receive that funding in the future, Varnam said they’ll have to reduce suspension rate disparities.
Varnam, along with a survey of the district’s principals, suggested addressing the root causes of misbehavior — things like mental health issues and trauma. Proposed strategies include counselor lessons in social-emotional learning, modeling de-escalation for staff, and working with students on their behavior.
These principals also advocated for addressing implicit bias and equity training for the district’s staff. And Varnam reminded the board that the biggest influence on student behavior is the positive leadership/culture of each school.
Board member Josie Barnhart said to Varnam that teachers have told her, “Josie, I have tried; I have de-escalated; I have pulled in teachers and administrators, and I still have kids who are violently aggressive, and I don't know what to do to keep my class maintained.”
Barnhart went on to say that terms like ‘equitable treatment’ in the district’s policy 4300 on student behavior are “virtue-signaling” and said, “what we've done over the last few years, through leadership, we've said, ‘Let's just stop doing that practice,’” meaning suspensions.
Varnam pushed back, responding that at no point has there been a directive not to suspend.
Board member Stephanie Walker said terms like equity are embedded in both federal and county governments and that it’s not a “scary” term.
“It's about opportunities, and making sure that we are trying our best to understand the biases we hold,” Walker said.
Frustration over ‘semantics’
Varnam’s presentation revived an existing debate over terms like ‘equity’ and ‘social-emotional learning’.
Recently, the board’s policy committee voted to remove terms like “social [or] emotional development” from district policy 3610, which outlines the counseling program. The change won’t be official until the full board approves it.
Four of the evening’s 23 ‘Call to the Audience’ speakers weighed in against the change.
For example, community member Alicia Ogundele said to the board that counselors are supposed to work with the whole child, which includes this type of social development. She added, “Our students are not robots and have emotions — we need to allow our counselors to do their jobs.”
Vice-Chair Pat Bradford, who sits on the policy committee, was asked directly by member Stephanie Kraybill why the words were removed, but she declined to answer. She had previously dodged a similar question during the policy committee meeting. Bradford did at one point compare the issue to “beating a dead horse,” saying she’d already addressed the topic in the past.
Barnhart, chair of the policy committee, struck a different tone, saying the board needed further deliberation and consensus on terms like “social-emotional learning” and “equity” before a final vote on the counseling policy.
“You're frustrated with semantics, we're frustrated with semantics. So are we willing to have an open dialogue and have like a work discussion about the different expectations of what these things are?” Barnhart said.
Barnhart did voice concerns about the pressures counselors could face from their supervisors if they didn’t meet social, emotional needs of the student, asking, “Do [supervisors] then have grounds in our policy to push back and say they're not doing their job? They didn't do it appropriately? They didn't do it right?”
It’s worth noting that the district’s policy language is not unique; it comes from the American Counselor Association National Model and the State Board of Education’s comprehensive school counseling program.
Board Member Hugh McManus said he, too, didn’t understand why the policy committee would have the counselors only dealing with academic and career development.
“I do not understand why any of it is being removed. We just talked about our suspension rates, and we're going to argue over three words? I don't get the coming priorities here, and we're losing the focus and concept of what we're all about,” McManus said, referring to Varnam’s presentation.
Members Walker and Kraybill also agreed with McManus.
Ultimately the board voted to hold a work session to hash out the meaning of key — and contentious — words. Mason, Bradford, and Chair Pete Wildeboer voted against the work session, but it passed 4-3. The date of the upcoming work session on these terms has not been determined.
Other votes
The board also unanimously voted to send their $110.8 million budget recommendation to New Hanover County.
They also voted 4-3 to change policy 4720 surrounding surveys. Most district surveys are now switching to the parental ‘opt-in’ model, which makes parents/guardians give explicit consent for a student to take a survey, rather than ‘opt-out’ in which parents/guardians tell the district they don’t want their child taking a survey.
They voted 5-2, with Walker and Mason dissenting, to change the call to the audience procedures for the next three months. The sign-up list will change from 30 to 20 participants maximum. The public will be able to sign up at the conclusion of the board’s agenda review meeting, and if more than 20 sign-up, the district will then randomly select the participants who will be speaking.
2305 NHCS Suspension by Ben Schachtman on Scribd
