Star Tribune: “A coalition of religious leaders, parents and teachers on Thursday called for Minnesota schools to pass a moratorium on suspensions, citing the fact that students of color are disciplined much more frequently than white students.

Members of ISAIAH said they want to end the “school to prison pipeline” that occurs when students of color are systematically suspended or expelled.

Nekima Levy Pounds, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, cited statistics that showed 46,609 students were suspended, expelled or excluded during the 2011-2012 school year in Minnesota. Students of color accounted for 60 percent of all disciplinary action that school year.

“These statistics should break our hearts, and compel us all – especially in the faith community – to act in a transformative way,” she said at press conference at the state Capitol.

In addition to calling on a moratorium on suspensions, ISAIAH members are also asking schools to remove police from school discipline procedures.

ISAIAH’s call for action follows recent federal push for schools to ease up on suspensions.”

Read the rest here.

The Ranger: “In the 2006, high school freshman Shaquanda Cotton, from Paris, Texas, briefly made national headlines for being convicted in juvenile court for assaulting a public servant.

Cotton tried to get on campus early to get her medication from the school nurse and was involved in an altercation with a teacher’s aide.

She received an indeterminate sentence for disruptive behavior and was sent to a Texas Youth Commission facility. An indeterminate sentence means there is no fixed term. She could have served until she was 21, but she served one year and was released because of good behavior.

Cotton’s situation is one of the examples Dr. Bill Bush presented Thursday in a lecture sponsored by the college’s Honors Academy, “The ‘School to Prison Pipeline’: Where Did it Come From?” to an audience of about 35 students and faculty.

Students from the social science, criminal justice and history programs attended.

Bush is a history professor and history and social sciences chair at Texas A&M University-San Antonio.

The phrase “school to prison pipeline” is known to professionals who work with adolescents.

Over the last 20 years, juvenile justice policy changes have created a situation for concern because students are being fast-tracked out of public education and into the criminal justice system, Bush said.

Bush suggested the “school to prison pipeline” has a particular racial and ethnic component that disproportionately affects non-white students and students with disabilities.

“What you see is a contested terrain in juvenile justice,” he said.

His reference to Cotton, a minority student diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, supports this.”

Read the rest here.

ENewsPF: “Washington, D.C.–(ENEWSPF)–February 27, 2014.  Today, as President Barack Obama hosts an event unveiling a new White House initiative on young men of color, the Center for American Progress released a report that stresses the importance of including LGBT youth a part of this crucial conversation. The initiative, which looks for ways to address why young men of color are disproportionately affected by poverty and prison, also presents a great opportunity to consider the unique factors exacerbating those inequalities for black LBGT youth.

“It’s great to see the White House begin to tackle the problems faced by young men of color, especially issues of school push-out and overcriminalization that incarcerate rather than educate far too many of our black youth.” said Aisha Moodie-Mills, co-author of the report and Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. “LGBT youth, especially those of color, experience similar challenges with school discipline policies as black boys, so any effort to address these issues will go a long way toward boosting outcomes for LGBT youth as well.”

Last month, the Department of Education released groundbreaking legal guidelines on discipline for the first time to address and reduce racial discrimination and disproportionality in school discipline, which has been found to perpetuate a school-to-prison pipeline for black youth, especially boys. This guidance makes tremendous strides in reporting on the stark racial disparities in school discipline, and CAP’s new report sheds light on the similar impact of hostile school climate and zero-tolerance policies on LGBT youth.”

Read the rest here.

Daily Planet: “A frustrated teacher at the helm of an unruly classroom– students shouting, texting and throwing paper airplanes. Although this type of ‘disruptive behavior’ may be a reality for many teachers on a daily basis, this particular scenario was part of a role play exercise performed by students at a recent Solutions Not Suspensions event in North Minneapolis, aimed at getting Minneapolis students involved in school discipline practices.

The goal of this role play was to illustrate how inappropriate behavior might be labeled for students unfamiliar with terms such as ‘insubordination’ and ‘disruptive behavior.’ “It was really shocking for me to see, said Ivy Thomas, a freshman at Harding High School, “because I’ve seen everything that they showed up there, I just didn’t know technical terms. Most of the terms that they were touching base on I really didn’t know, like ‘insubordination.’ I didn’t know what that was.” The role play included students working in small groups to act out “assault,” “harassment,” “extortion,” “disruptive behavior,” and four other terms used to label inappropriate behavior in the Minneapolis Public Schools Code of Conduct.”

Read the rest here.