When advocate Jessica Bauer Walker heard the New York State Attorney General’s Office released an investigation and settlement with Buffalo Public Schools over suspensions, she was excited.
"We were excited and affirmed when the Attorney General validated what we had been saying as parents and students," she said. "And we anticipated that we would find some relief before the end of the school year."
Earlier this year, the findings of the investigation validated what Walker and other advocates had said for years: The school district was disproportionately suspending students of color and students with disabilities. Walker is the co-chair of the Community Health Worker Parent and Student Association, which advocates on behalf for students and parents.
However, Walker said in the four months since the school reached a settlement with the attorney general’s office, there has been little change.
“It's been over 100 days at this point. We're at the end of another school year. We continue to see our students suspended,” Walker said. “I have at least five cases that I've worked with students, children of color, whose families are immigrants and refugees who don't speak English as a first language with legal violations.”
Walker is a part of the Solutions not Suspensions Coalition, an organization that advocates to end the school-to-prison pipeline in New York schools.
The “school-to-prison pipeline” refers to policies and practices that push children — especially children of color — out of the school system and into the juvenile and criminal justice system, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Local members of the coalition have launched a hotline parents of suspended students can call for support: 716-220-7081.
“If the district is not going to help you, your school is not going to help you, if the attorney general's office is not going to help you, we're here to help you,” said Walker.
While the number of suspensions has gone down since February, Kim Diana Connolly, a professor at the University of Buffalo School of Law and a member of the coalition, said that is only one part of a much broader change that needs to take place.
"The [settlement] is not just about reducing suspension numbers," said Connolly. "It's about creating school environments where students remain connected to learning, where conflicts are addressed constructively, where accountability is paired with support, where relationships are strengthened rather than broken through random suspensions. Restorative practices offers a pathway to repair relationships, build community, and help students remain engaged in school."
Samuel Radford, also from the Solutions not Suspensions Coalition, said the issue of suspensions in schools became more pressing to many after the death of a student.
“There are real consequences to our children for what's going on, and what we want to do is make sure that we don't wait until another situation like what happened with Jawan Daniels,” said Radford. “There are real consequences to students being pushed out, there are real consequences to students' civil rights being violated.”
In 2010, Daniels was sent home from school early after being caught standing in a hallway. Daniels’ parents were not notified and the 15-year-old was shot and killed while waiting at a bus stop soon after.
Daniels’ situation is called an “informal suspension” by advocates, who say it is one way that the Buffalo school system avoids accountability when suspending students.
“Rather than documenting a suspension, families are simply being told go home,” said Samantha White, a supervising attorney at the Western New York Law Center. “And while it may not be a number in the district suspensions, it is a suspension that is impacting that student, and it's a way for them to hide their actual suspension numbers.”
Advocates say that while the city school district may be following some of the steps outlined in their agreement with the AG’s office, little actual change is being made. Advocates claim they have not been able to reach the ombudsperson the district appointed to serve as a point of contact to help ensure discipline policies are applied fairly and consistently.
Additionally, advocates allege the same principals and school administrators who were responsible for the disparities in suspensions are the ones who have been appointed as coordinators to ensure compliance with the settlement and civil rights law.
“Having a principal who is the sole determiner of whether or not a suspension will be issued and how long it will be for as the person doing the oversight within that building is a major conflict of interest,” said White. “It's basically inviting the fox into the hen house.”
When asked what will happen if the school district does not adhere to their settlement with the attorney general’s office, Quinn Martha, an assistant director at the New York Civil Liberties Union's Education Policy Center, said the attorney general could sue the school district.
