Elk Grove ranked highest in the state for suspending Black students. Advocates demand change
Two of Sacramento’s largest school districts had among the highest suspension rates of Black students in 2019, and advocates are pushing for changes to what they describe as extreme and unfair disciplinary actions.
Elk Grove Unified School District suspended more Black students than any district in California in 2019 and the Sacramento City Unified School District was listed at fourth in the state based on data from the “Suspending Our Future” survey released by the Black Minds Matter Coalition.
Lorreen Pryor, a parent and former student of the Elk Grove school system, now serves as the President and CEO of the Black Youth Leadership Project (BYLP). She’s advocating for a solution to what students, parents, and advocates say is an unacceptable problem.
“I receive complaints from families in the district and then I go in to make sure what they’re saying actually occurred and that my students are not being disproportionately disciplined,” said Pryor. “Elk Grove (is) number one for disproportionate discipline of Black students.”
Pryor says she has three binders full of complaints from students and families and the majority are from Elk Grove.
Discipline taken against students includes suspension, expulsion, loss of recess, limits on co-curricular activities – such as partial game suspensions in athletics and restrictions from after-school programs – as well as the use of mechanical restraints, and physical and virtual seclusion.
“With regard to our suspensions, I think it’s important to note that we have done a lot of work to change what the research did show, that we do have the highest number of African American students who are being suspended,” said EGUSD spokeswoman, Xanthi Soriano
Soriano says that they’ve changed key policies involving discipline such as evaluating the role of law enforcement, adjusting the district’s “zero tolerance” policy, and addressing the dress code policy.
Pryor says she received 76 complaints since 2018, most from after the virtual learning period began, six complaints since the start of this school year and three in the last couple of weeks. Pryor said she has already advocated for multiple families of Black students who were disciplined with suspensions over minor infractions or allegations made against them this school year.
One occurred on the campus of Monterey Trails High School. Three non-Black students allegedly physically attacked a Black student and continued to attack her, even after school administration had separated the girls, according to Pryor. The Black female student was the only student facing expulsion for the altercation.
Elk Grove officials confirmed the incident, but said they could not discuss the information discovered after the investigation, but protocols were followed.
“In our discipline policies, we contact the parents, we’re working with the students. We look at our restorative measures, we look at the investigation component and then decisions are made based on information. Sometimes we get new information, and then we continue looking at due process,” said Soriano.
The school administration ultimately determined they did not have enough evidence to proceed with an expulsion status and the student was given a five-day suspension on her record, while the other three students were subject to a two-day suspension from campus grounds, according to Pryor.
The students involved did not wish to speak publicly due to fear of retribution, Pryor told The Sacramento Bee.
She said she feels the punishment was unfair and is working to counter the narrative that said the Black student was the aggressor in the altercation. She says the actual story contradicts what was written on the discipline form, which can follow a student throughout their academic career, until college.
“I’m really disappointed,” said Pryor. “I feel the investigation was not done thoroughly. It was a rush to judgment. They automatically saw the Black young lady as the aggressor without even taking into consideration the situation in its totality.”
Pryor was made aware of another incident at Sheldon High School, during the annual powder puff flag football game. She was told that a Black student and participant was accused of attempting to intentionally hit her opponent.
She is facing a day of at-home suspension, a day of on-campus suspension, placement on the “no activities” list for a week, and is being threatened with removal from her leadership class.
Pryor was successful in having the one-day home suspension removed for the student. Pryor, and the student is still waiting to determine the other outcomes.
“We want the message to be clear that we’re someplace for our students to land, to come to be built up and to be supported with advocacy,” Pryor said of the mission of BYLP.
‘Capital of Suspensions’ for California
The suspension rate for all students in California is 3.5%, according to the data found in the “Suspending Our Future” survey.
However, for Black male students, the statewide rate is 11.8%. Indigenous male students have a 10.1% suspension rate.
Black female students are suspended at a 6.1% rate and Black students who identify as non-binary are suspended at higher rates (20.8%) than other non binary students (2.5%).
The Black Minds Matter coalition, an alliance of professors and education leaders at San Diego State University, UCLA, Southwest Community College, Claremont Graduate school, and the San Diego Office of Education discovered that in 2019, the Sacramento City Unified School District and the Elk Grove Unified School District were two of the top five suspension districts for Black students.
“Sacramento happens to be what we call the ‘capital of suspensions’ because it has four of the top 20 suspension districts in the state of California,” said J. Luke Wood, a professor at San Diego State University who helped lead the research for the survey. “Right now it has the number one and number three based on the last report that we did. We know that Black boys, Black students overall, are significantly more likely to be exposed to exclusionary discipline.”
The Los Angeles Unified School District ranked fifth in Black suspensions and Oakland, which has more Black students than Elk Grove, ranked second in Black students suspended.
Counties with the lowest Black population such as Modoc, Amador, Glenn, Madera and Plumas had the highest rates of suspensions.
In 2019, eight Sacramento county schools made the top 50 suspensions list for Black youth: Nova Opportunity (Twin Rivers USD), James Rutter Middle School (EGUSD), T.R. Smedberg Middle School (EGUSD), Encina Preparatory High School (SJUSD), Samuel Jackman Middle School (EGUSD), Rio Linda Preparatory Academy (Twin Rivers USD), and Mills Middle School (Folsom-Cordova USD).
Three additional Sacramento schools cracked the top 20 suspension rates for both traditional and nontraditional schools. Fortune High School ranked the highest at number four, Encina Preparatory High School ranked seventh and Sheldon High School in Elk Grove ranked 18th.
“Really what it comes down to and our focus has been on is shining a light on the districts, and on the schools, that have a grievously high suspension rates,” said Wood. “There should be a mandatory process like there would be for any other type of school failure, where the state comes in and basically supersedes and superintends that process. There needs to be better training of teachers in our schools of education.”
This story was originally published September 30, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
