Black CMS students suspended much more often than white classmates, data finds
Black students are significantly disproportionately disciplined and don’t see themselves reflected in the teaching staff at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, a new report says.
The Southern Coalition for Social Justice released “racial equity report cards” on Thursday for North Carolina and its school districts, and the data show big gaps at CMS.
The data from the 2019-20 school year overwhelmingly show that Black students are more likely to be suspended and referred to the court system than their white classmates in North Carolina and in Charlotte — a trend the group says contributes to the school-to-prison pipeline.
And despite a shift last March to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, SCSJ Justice System Reform chief counsel Tyler Whittenberg said racial disparities persisted in the school year data.
CMS officials did not respond to requests Thursday or Friday for an interview.
While the pandemic has set learning back for all students, Black students and other marginalized groups have been disproportionately affected. Black students have had to learn during a nationwide racial reckoning. Under that huge emotional strain, they’ve learned in homes more likely to be without internet access, and research shows Black students are more likely to have parents who are essential workers and can’t remain at home to help with school work.
“Students have had to learn sometimes in 1-bedroom apartments, while parents might have to work in that same space as well. Can you afford for someone to stay with the child if you go back to work? Can you work from home?” Whittenberg asked. “What impact does that have on a child’s education?”
He said schools will have to reckon with racist policies that exacerbate these findings, especially after classrooms reopen post-pandemic.
“A district budget is a moral document. It shows what they actually want to invest in and what they care about,” Whittenberg said. “As we invest in strategies and policies that lead to these disparities, we’re sanctioning these levels of systemic racism.”
Harsher discipline for Black students
CMS has an enrollment of more than 140,000 students.
The Southern Coalition for Social Justice report shows Black students in the district are 7.1 times more likely than white classmates to receive short-term suspension — that’s nearly twice the state average of 3.9.
That’s been the case for years, Whittenberg said, and the group’s findings indicate that the de facto school segregation in CMS continues to affect marginalized students.
“Typically, in districts that are incredibly segregated … you’re gonna see more law enforcement in schools with students of color and with low-income backgrounds,” Whittenberg said. “The more you police Black and brown students, the more referrals you’re going to have.”
Besides an overuse of discipline, he said another contributing factor is rooted in culture.
Students of color compose three-fourths of the population at CMS, but only 38% of teachers are people of color. Students’ behaviors can be misinterpreted by teachers who don’t understand their backgrounds.
“Black students are adultified, for one. They’re seen as more culpable, as less deserving of support. They’re viewed as being malicious when they’re simply being adolescents,” Whittenberg said. “When you don’t understand their background, you won’t understand their responses ... They’re vilified for being themselves.”
Suspensions take students out of classrooms, where they miss necessary opportunities to learn and socialize, and repeated discipline leads to student disengagement and referrals to law enforcement, which removes them from their community. And all of it comes at a pivotal time in a student’s life, when they’re developing their own understanding of justice and equity.
It’s a vicious cycle, Whittenberg said.
For the year covered in the report, ending in early 2020, nearly 82% of students referred to law enforcement were Black, while they only represent about a third of the district’s student population. About 21% of all juvenile delinquency complaints in Mecklenburg were school-related.
“That’s ridiculous. That’s indicative of the overpolicing and targeting of Black students,” said Whittenberg, who was a former teacher at Whitewater Middle School.
“While these schools are segregated, you’re pushing law enforcement and this heavy handed approach to school management in schools with Black and brown students and taking the opposite approach in other schools.
“It’s clear CMS has that problem.”
Despite some progress over the past year, like Gov. Roy Cooper’s task force on racial equity, Whittenberg said the data is still concerning.
In North Carolina, Black students received more than half of all short-term suspensions, despite comprising only a quarter of the statewide student population.
He recommended districts develop restorative justice practices and hire more teachers of color to change those numbers. Additionally, there’s been a push in other counties and nationwide to remove school resource officers and law enforcement from schools.
“Parents should be alarmed and push for change,” he said. “We see these disparities as connected to the same systemic racism that existed in classrooms prior to segregation during times of integration and now in time of COVID.”
