Ending Zero Tolerance Policies and the Criminalization of Youth in Schools

New York's schools all too often serve as way stations on children's journeys through the cradle to prison pipeline. In far too many schools throughout New York, police officers significantly outnumber guidance counselors, suspensions and expulsions have skyrocketed in recent years, and twelve-year old students can be arrested and handcuffed for actions as simple as writing “I love my friends” on a desk. Punitive school discipline policies and policing practices in schools are pushing our children out of school by criminalizing rather than educating and socializing them.

Building upon our existing efforts to dismantle the cradle to prison pipeline and in collaboration with several local, state, and federal coalitions, we aim to end zero tolerance practices and the criminalization of children in New York’s schools.

Our Partners In This Work

Dignity in Schools Campaign: CDF-NY is a member of the Dignity in Schools Campaign (DSC) and an active participant in DSC’s New York City chapter. The DSC-NYC has identified three broad goals: 1) ending zero-tolerance and criminalization of youth in schools, 2) expanding training around utilizing positive discipline approaches and creating positive school climate, and 3) implementing restorative justice and positive behavior interventions and supports by modeling such practices in pilot schools.

CDF-NY is also a signer of the National Resolution to End School Pushout and a committee member of the DSC Local Advocacy Strategies Group – a nationwide group committed to promoting disciplinary reform through the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

NYC Student Safety Coalition: CDF-NY is a member of the NYC Student Safety Coalition. The Student Safety Coalition is committed to creating respectful school environments and ensuring the right to education for all New York City students. The coalition's most immediate objective is passage of the Student Safety Act by the New York City Council. The Student Safety Act offers a way to ensure that school administrators, teachers and school safety agents are held accountable through the quarterly reporting of disaggregated data related to arrests and suspensions in NYC schools. Once these data are publicly available, it will be possible to have much more productive and nuanced conversations about discipline at the individual school level.

Rochester School Discipline Taskforce: In Rochester, New York we convened a taskforce of community stakeholders to respond to the over 300% increase in juvenile arrests in schools in the 2008-2009 academic year. As a direct response to the new Superintendent’s policy requiring that in-school suspensions replace out-of-school suspensions (an initiative intended to ensure students would lose less instructional time), many principals resorted to having students arrested. Arresting young people for non-criminal public order offenses became a common technique for removing “problem students” from schools.

National Week of Action Against Pushout

Youth, parents and teachers take action to expose school pushout crisis and demand solutions

During the week of October 11-17, 2010, members of the Dignity in Schools Campaign, a national coalition of parents, youth, advocates and educators from around the country, organized actions in 15 cities to expose the school pushout crisis in our nation and advocate for the human right of every young person to a quality education and to be treated with dignity.

Local Dignity in Schools Campaign members from New York City brought their voices to this national effort by organizing a Teach-in on October 14, Solutions for Positive School Discipline, Push Back Against Pushout! Teachers and youth leaders spoke about the impact of punitive and exclusionary discipline policies in New York City, and the need for more positive approaches that create safe and supportive school climates without pushing students out of school.

In New York City, an alarming number of students are being denied educational opportunities as they are pushed out of school by degrading environments, harsh suspensions, over-policing, and other harmful policies. Since 2006, suspensions in New York City have increased by 40%. Today there are more than 5,200 School Safety Agents trained and supervised by the NYPD in New York City schools, a police force larger than that of Washington D.C., Detroit, Boston or Baltimore.

These punitive practices do not reduce misbehavior but put students at greater risk of failing classes and dropping out. Each year nationwide, 1.3 million students that enter high school will not graduate. This crisis impacts students of color, students with disabilities and other historically disenfranchised students at higher rates.