Most Fresno-area schools suspend students above the state average. Here’s the data
.jpeg "At most of Fresno County’s 31 school districts, students were suspended at a higher rate than the state average in the 2021-22 school year.")
At most of Fresno County’s 31 school districts, students were suspended at a higher rate than the state average in the 2021-22 school year.
That’s true of the county’s largest districts, too.
About 3.2% of the state’s over 6 million students received at least one suspension last school year, according to the latest available California Department of Education data.
But at Fresno Unified, Clovis Unified and Central Unified – the county’s three largest districts – the suspension rate was anywhere from less than a percent higher to twice as high. The three largest districts also suspended Black and foster students at disproportionate rates, according to an Education Lab analysis of the latest data.
The detrimental effects of higher suspension rates on students’ academic performance and sense of belonging at school have been well-documented by researchers.
The Ed Lab reached out to district officials from Central, Fresno, and Clovis Unified to understand why these districts suspend students at above-average rates and what, if anything, they’re doing to address the discrepancy.
Leaders from all three districts acknowledged the struggle to navigate between two priorities that are seemingly at odds: avoiding punitive measures like suspension and handling students who are disruptive to class or pose a threat to campus safety.
“We’re in a real conundrum,” said FUSD Board President Veva Islas in an interview, “in that we want to hold our students accountable, right? We don’t want them to be disruptive.”
But with foster students and other groups being disciplined most often in Fresno Unified, Islas added, there’s often trauma, and other adverse circumstances at the core of why they’re acting out that must also be addressed.
District leaders also identified the different ways they’re responding to these trends.
Central Unified Superintendent Ketti Davis told the Ed Lab via email that the district is working to address “discipline disproportionality” through anything from de-escalation training for staff to participation in a Black student empowerment program through the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools’ office.
In Clovis, the district is also aiming to avoid suspension as often as possible, spokesperson Kelly Avants told the Ed Lab over email, but will still turn to the practice at times.
“In Clovis Unified, we are known for holding to a high standard of student behavior,” she said, “and if necessary, do not rule out suspension as a last resort consequence should the situation warrant.”
Fresno County’s 2021-22 suspension data
Central Unified is Fresno County’s third-largest district, with almost 17,000 students enrolled, and had the highest suspension rate of the three largest districts at 6.2%, nearly double the overall state rate of 3.2%.
Fresno Unified, the county’s largest district at roughly 74,000 students, wasn’t far behind Central: Its suspension rate last year was 5.9%.
Clovis Unified, the county’s second-largest district with over 44,000 students, had a lower rate of 4% but still exceeded California’s average.
All three districts also suspended Black and foster students at disproportionately high rates, the CDE data shows.
The suspension rates for Black students in Fresno, Clovis, and Central Unified were 12.6%, 9.6%, and 13.5%, respectively.
The respective rates for foster students in each district were 14.6%, 17.1%, and 23.8%.
While the three districts affected the most students in Fresno County, none of them had the highest overall suspension rate.
The highest rate was in Laton Joint Unified, which suspended 9.2% of its roughly 700 students last year. The district’s superintendent didn’t respond to the Ed Lab’s request for comment.
Why Fresno’s largest K-12 districts suspend so many students
Upon returning to in-person learning after the pandemic shuttered campuses, most schools around the country reported an increase in behavioral issues – as well as negative impacts on mental health – during the transition back.
Avants pointed to this issue in explaining Clovis Unified’s heightened suspension rate.
“The data from 2021-22 represents a year in which our schools were still navigating the direct impact of transitioning all students back to in-person learning,” she said, “re-teaching behavioral norms at school and mandated quarantine absences.”
That was reflected in the data for Clovis Unified, which had a suspension rate of 3.7% in the 2018-19 school year, roughly 0.3% lower than this year.
However, Fresno and Central Unified’s data can’t easily be explained the same way, as both districts had higher suspension rates between the 2018-19 and 2021-22 school years. Specifically, the rate dropped from 7.2% to 5.9% in Fresno and 7.1% to 6.2% in Central.
A Fresno Unified spokesperson didn’t respond to multiple inquiries from the Ed Lab regarding trends in the district’s suspension data in time for publication.
Davis, of Central Unified, didn’t point to any particular factor fueling the district’s above-average suspension rate.
Avants said that suspensions are seen only as a last resort to hold students accountable for their behavior – a point Clovis Unified Board President David DeFrank echoed in an email to the Ed Lab.
“Clovis Unified’s emphasis on high standards includes our students,” he said. “It is in their best interest to learn that serious behavior will be met with serious consequences before they become adults. Additionally, we take student discipline seriously in order to support our teachers and school sites.”
As for why Black students are receiving a disproportionate number of suspensions, researchers have found that the disparities often can’t be accounted for by behavioral differences but rather by racial discrimination and bias.
Islas told the Ed Lab she believes that plays a role in Fresno Unified’s higher rate of disciplining of Black students.
“I think that this is symptomatic of a lot of other examples we can point to of anti-Blackness, and lingering ideas,” she said, “(that) punitive approaches work.”
In Fresno Unified, it wasn’t only Black students who were overrepresented in suspension data. So were foster students, unhoused students, and students with disabilities.
Islas suggested another explanation for those trends.
“I think what is probably clear is that a lot of these vulnerable students have had some trauma in their life,” she said, “and they’re acting out because of the circumstances that they’re in.”
‘We can’t fail’
Many of the programs that school leaders in Fresno, Clovis, and Central highlighted in conversation with the Ed Lab try to address the trauma and other issues at the root of why students act out.
For instance, Avants highlighted key components of Clovis Unified’s “holistic approach” to student discipline beyond suspension, including offering restorative justice practices and behavioral support teams aimed specifically at helping students exhibiting “extreme behaviors.”
In Central Unified, Davis said the district has provided de-escalation training for some staff, hired mental health counselors at every school, and created dedicated spaces on campus for students to cool down in their efforts to reduce suspension rates.
“Substance abuse counseling is available at our high schools and recently added to our middle schools,” she added, “and a social-emotional curriculum is being taught.”
These and other supports were topics of a Central Unified board workshop in late February.
Fresno Unified last year invested $38 million in social-emotional support.
That included funds to hire 10 additional social workers to work with foster and unhoused students and other new positions that would take the district’s mental health staffing to over 200 people.
“And it’s still not enough, right?” Islas said. “There still continues to be more need.”
FUSD didn’t provide an update on whether those 10 positions had been filled.
Beyond investing more money in preventative measures, Islas also said she hopes the district will hire more teachers and principals of color and have a workforce more reflective of the student body.
“Our teacher population is older. I think they’re incredibly dedicated individuals,” she said, “but many, I’m sure, do not have life experiences like those that their students are experiencing.”
Davis also alluded to Central Unified’s efforts to create a teacher-of-color pipeline by offering professional development “centered on culturally responsive teaching,” she said, and forming middle school Black Student Unions.
Central’s Board President Naindeep Singh told the Ed Lab via email that getting feedback from the community will be vital moving forward.
“The Board and Central Unified team are investing in new and innovative programs to compassionately address the needs of the whole child, but we must get better,” he said, “and we actively seek greater community input to improve our ability to serve our students.”
Islas stressed that learning more and exploring solutions in response to disparities in school discipline “is to everyone’s benefit.”
“We have a lot of vulnerable families. Education is supposed to be the thing that transforms,” she said, “that gives them more opportunities and a better future. And so when we fail, it’s devastating.”
“We can’t fail,” she added. “We can’t afford to fail.”
The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Learn about The Bee’s Education Lab at its website.
This story was originally published March 6, 2023 at 5:30 AM.
