Daily Archives: May 7, 2022

We all come together to honor and celebrate our teachers every May during Teacher Appreciation Week. But, now more than two years into a global pandemic its time to go beyond appreciating teachers with words and commit to supporting their well-being all year with action and resources.

Its a challenging time for teachers. Weve asked them to learn entirely new methods of teaching, and to tend to the trauma and stress that students are experiencing right now. These pressures are taking their toll. At the beginning of the pandemic, the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence asked more than 5,000 teachers how they were feeling. Anxious and overwhelmed rose to the top. Since then, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of educators working in public education has decreased by 600,000.

Its clear: Teachers are at a very real risk of burnout. And teacher stress affects students well-being and achievement, threatening the well-being of the entire education system. If teachers lack belonging and connection, their students will feel the same way, which will impact their readiness for learning and development.

But, heres the good news: We can all start supporting teacher well-being right now better equipping them to meet the needs of their students

Here are five proven ways school and district leaders can provide support for teacher well-being, helping teachers reengage with what they love about the profession and revitalizing their relationships with their students.

Strong and trusting relationships between adults are just as crucial as those between teachers and students. We cant assume adults are making these connections during free moments on busy days, particularly when educators report feeling more responsibility than ever.

At Van Ness Elementary, head of school Cynthia Robinson-Rivers is intentionally working to create dedicated time and space for teachers to connect and de-stress. Teacher schedules include frequent breaks and well-being support from an on-site clinical psychologist. There are also dedicated school spaces for teachers to have mindful moments and time for physical activity, including community yoga.

As our students and teachers continue to navigate uncertainty, instability and trauma, its crucial to prioritize environments that center healing and equity, and recognize and celebrate both students and teachers culture and identity. Kingmakers of Oakland provides a great example of how professional development can support these goals. The nonprofit organization leads trainings for educators and district leaders on culturally-responsive curriculum. Their efforts are supporting collaborative learning communities to share, plan, build and implement safe learning environments.

Positive, trusting, healthy relationships cannot be left to chance. There must be intentional design in addition to resourcing and monitoring how these designs are built and fostered in our learning environments.

To that end, New Village Girls Academy is exploring research-backed strategies to ensure strong relationships between teachers and students through a partnership with the University of California, Los Angeles and University of Southern California. Their multi-year collaboration will evaluate whether teachers ability to self-regulate helps to co-regulate with students and create stronger conditions for student-led work.

Over the past few years, in particular, weve seen technology play a critical role in helping people stay connected. When used with intention, it can be leveraged to bolster relationships between teachers and students.

For example, Along, a teacher-student connection builder created by our Education Initiative and our partners at Gradient Learning, helps students and teachers connect. Based on the science of how people relate, Along is designed to be an easy way for teachers to get to know students on a deeper level, so students feel seen and motivated to participate and learn. Research-backed conversation prompts in Along equip teachers to help students open up and build lifelong skills in areas such as organization, motivation and stress management.

By listening to the needs of their community, leaders can prioritize and adapt strategies to improve teacher and student well-being with insights from those who know it best teachers and students. They can do this by conducting more robust school climate surveys that look at how well a school is supporting teachers and students sense of belonging and connection.

The well-being and development of our students starts with how we care for our teachers, and how we support them with resources to care for our students. Were committed to the development of accessible resources that help districts and schools prioritize well-being for teachers. Help spread the word by sharing these strategies with your school community.

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5 Ways To Support Teacher Well-Being - CZI Blog - Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hurdle Health, the leading provider of culturally intentional digital mental health services, is presenting the Second Annual Black Mental Health Roundtable in collaboration with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), the Kennedy-Satcher Center for Mental Health Equity and the American Psychological Association (APA). The roundtable, to be held on May 11, 2022, at 10:00 a.m. EDT in the Rayburn House Office Building (Room 2044), is hosted by U.S. Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (Florida 20th Congressional District).

The event will bring together leading experts in minority mental health, members of Congress and others to discuss a report that Hurdle will publish next week about the effects of vicarious racism on the mental health of Black Americans. The goal of the event is twofold to raise awareness around systemic and vicarious racism and to create a platform for policy change that improves the mental health, and therefore, the daily lives of those in the BIPOC community.

We have decades of research that demonstrate the harmful effects of racism on peoples physical and mental health. We also know from the scientific literature as well as through anecdotes and qualitative research, like Hurdles Voices of a Collective Experience: Vicarious Racism and its Effects on Black Mental Health that racism can also be experienced indirectly and cause people considerable distress and trauma, said Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD, CEO and Executive Vice President of the APA. Why do policymakers acknowledge the detrimental indirect effects of cigarette smoke or the harms of witnessing violence on peoples health, but too often ignore those associated with experiencing racism? By recognizing indirect experiences of racism as a complex and significant public health issue, our nation can better develop policy solutions that stop the perpetuation of racism and its devastating effects on mental health.

Hurdles inaugural May 2021 roundtable event focused on Black Mental Health Before and After George Floyds Death, an incident that triggered an unprecedented rise in mental health issues among Black Americans.

George Floyds name has become tantamount to themes of solidarity and remembrance. His legacy beckons a commitment to the causes of equality, justice and the Black Lives Matter movement, said Kevin Dedner, CEO and Founder of Hurdle. And, Floyds death demands a deeper level of understanding of where and how racism shows up, and its toxic effects on the minds of the racially oppressed. That is why for the last two years, proceeding with Hurdles seminal research into Black mental health in his honor has required the utmost intentionality.

Two years following Floyds tragic death, Black Americans report experiencing elevated levels of depression, anxiety and other forms of psychological distress. Vicarious racism, or ones indirect encounters with racially charged acts of disrespect, harassment, contempt and/or violence (such as Floyds death and other racially charged tragedies in recent years), is directly correlated with a decline in mental health and individual well-being. The upcoming report published by Hurdle Health explores a qualitative analysis of the Black experience of vicarious racism and how it has impacted the mental health of Black Americans.

The George Floyd tragedy awakened Americas consciousness to systemic racism. By lifting up Darnella Fraziers story as the 17-year-old witness whose recording of Floyds death catalyzed a racial awakening, Hurdles Voices of a Collective Experience report details the ways prejudice and oppression surface through indirect, vicarious racism, said Daniel H. Gillison, Jr., CEO of NAMI. The report calls for an unprecedented focus on the mental health of Black Americans and other historically disenfranchised communities through the grounding of our mental health workforce in cultural humility.

Moderated by Gillison, the panel will be comprised of the reports authors:

The event will also feature remarks by:

Hurdles powerful report spotlights the challenges people of color face in a society that disregards the impact of racially-charged incidents like George Floyds tragic death, said former Congressman Patrick Kennedy of the Kennedy-Satcher Center for Mental Health Equity. The correlations drawn between exposure to racism secondhand and the ways in which images, videos and stories of anti-Black violence assail Black Americans sense of self-worth are profound reminders of the important work that lies ahead. We need to prioritize culturally intentional therapy and parity in our mental healthcare system now.

As a clinical and practicing psychotherapist, I believe we need to deepen our understanding of mental healthcare through the lens of human rights principles dignity, autonomy and equitable access. Mental healthcare is healthcare, and access to it is a human right, added Madhuri Jha, MPH, Director of the Kennedy-Satcher Center for Mental Health Equity.

The Second Annual Black Mental Health Roundtable is free to attend. Interested parties can register here for the event.

Second Annual Black Mental Health Roundtable

Wednesday, May 11, 2022 | 10:00 11:30 a.m. EDT

US Capitol, Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2044

About Hurdle

Hurdle is the leading culturally intentional mental healthcare provider. With cultural humility, we create a safe space where all people can show up as they are and feel understood. Our therapists are trained to provide culturally responsive evidence-based care to individuals, couples and families of all backgrounds, with a specific focus on people of color. Hurdle has established relationships with employer groups, leading payers and strategic partners, providing access to care to more than thirty million Americans. For more information, visit hurdle.health.

About the APA

The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APAs membership includes over 133,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve peoples lives. For more information, visit apa.org.

About the Kennedy-Satcher Center for Mental Health Equity

The Kennedy-Satcher Center for Mental Health Equity (KSCMHE), a division of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine, was jointly envisioned by the 16th U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. David Satcher, and former U.S. Representative Patrick J. Kennedy (D-RI). Building on their longstanding relationship and shared commitment to promoting mental health parity and health equity for people living with mental health and substance use disorders, the Center was made possible through a generous endowment from the Kennedy Forum, and matched by MSMs endowment from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. For more information, visit https://kennedysatcher.org.

About NAMI

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is the nation's largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. NAMI provides support, education, and advocacy nationwide with our network of 650 NAMI state organizations and affiliates. For more information, visit nami.org.

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Hurdle Health to Host Second Annual Black Mental Health Roundtable at the U.S. Capitol in Collaboration with NAMI, APA and the Kennedy-Satcher Center...

This story was originally published by ProPublica.

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.Series: The Price Kids Pay How Schools and Police Work Together to Punish Students

At Bloom Trail High School in Chicagos south suburbs, the student body is diverse: About 60% of the 1,100 students are Black or multiracial. Another 27% are Latino. And 12% are white.

But when you look at the group of students who get ticketed for misbehavior at school, the diversity vanishes.

Police, in cooperation with school officials, have written 178 tickets at the school in Steger since the start of the 2018-19 school year. School district records show that six went to Latino students. Five went to white students. And 167 went to Black or multiracial students 94% of the total.

Such racial disparities in ticketing are part of a pattern at schools across the state, an investigation by ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune has found. In the schools and districts examined, an analysis indicated that Black students were twice as likely to be ticketed as their white peers.

Reporters set out to analyze police ticketing in nearly 200 districts throughout Illinois, which together enroll most of the states high school students. Most local officials either did not specify race on tickets or refused to provide the information, but the news organizations obtained documentation of the race of students for about 4,000 tickets issued at schools in 68 districts.

After excluding places where ticketing was rare, schools in 42 districts remained, representing more than one-fifth of the states high school students. The analysis found that about 9% of those students are Black but nearly 20% of tickets went to Black students.

Analyzing tickets received by members of other racial or ethnic groups is more difficult, in part because the Tribune and ProPublica identified anomalies in the way school districts and police recorded information about white and Latino students. But students in those groups dont appear to have been ticketed at high rates compared to their share of school enrollment.

Student ticketing in Illinois, or any other state, has never been examined on this scale. In fact, while Illinois officials have focused on whether schools are suspending or expelling Black students in unequal ways, they have not monitored police ticketing at schools. Neither has the division of the U.S. Department of Education that oversees civil rights issues.

The first installment of the Tribune-ProPublica investigation The Price Kids Pay detailed how student ticketing flouts a state law meant to prevent schools from using fines to discipline students. The investigation, which was based on school and municipal records from across the state, documented at least 11,800 tickets during the past three school years. It found that schools often involve police in minor incidents, resulting in harsh fines, debt for students and families and records that can follow children into adulthood. (Use our interactive database to look up how many and what kinds of tickets have been issued in an Illinois public school or district.)

In response, Illinois top education official told school leaders to immediately stop and consider both the cost and the consequences of these fines, and Gov. J.B. Pritzker said conversations already were underway with legislators to make sure that this doesnt happen anywhere in the state of Illinois.

Illinois lawmakers tried in the past to pass legislation that would require school districts to collect and share student race and ethnicity data compiled by police when they intervene at schools for all types of disciplinary reasons, including such minor offenses as tobacco possession, tardiness or insubordination. But those efforts have stalled.

House Speaker Emanuel Chris Welch, a Democrat, said the legislature should take action if school ticketing is harming students.

If these tickets are being issued disproportionately to people of color, we need to address that. That can create larger problems for students of color, problems that weve become accustomed to for far too long, Welch said in an interview.

The U.S. Department of Education collects data nationally in alternate years about the race of students referred to and arrested by police. But it didnt do so during the 2019-20 school year, when in-person learning was interrupted by the pandemic. In 2017-18, the most recent year data was collected, Illinois stood out for the gap between the percentage of students who are Black and the percentage of students referred to the police who are Black. No other state had a bigger disparity.

In response to similar data on expulsions and suspensions, the state last fall put a group of districts including Bloom Township High School District 206 on notice to reform how they handle discipline.

In an emailed response to reporters questions, district officials said they were concerned about the racial disparities in ticketing identified at Bloom Trail. The districts response asserted that Black students and white students receive the same consequences for the same offenses and that the school has been affected by a rise in violent crime and gang activity in the communities the school serves.

Officials at Bloom Trail, which employs security guards to work inside the school, call Steger police when there is a fight that school officials think warrants a citation. Police bring the students tickets to the school, and officials give them to the students or their parents.

Greg Horak, Bloom Townships director of climate, described the citations as a supplement to school discipline. Dealing with the police, we hope this shows parents that this is a very serious situation, Horak said in an interview.

Rodney and Elizabeth Posley, whose sons Josiah and Jeremiah attend Bloom Trail, didnt realize students could get ticketed by police until it happened to their children in the fall. They said the boys were treated too harshly after they were part of a school fight that got out of hand.

The brothers were suspended and ticketed for disorderly conduct, and one was threatened with expulsion extreme measures, Elizabeth Posley said, for teenage mistakes. The Posleys enlisted the help of a lawyer, their church and school employees to advocate for their sons, noting that neither boy had been in trouble at school before and the younger of the two receives special education services.

Theyre young Black men. They stereotyped them, said Elizabeth Posley, who works as a pretrial officer at the Cook County Circuit Court. Theyre not into gangs, where theyre tough and theyre bad. We pray as a family.

Last fall, during his freshman year at Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School, southwest of Chicago, a 14-year-old Black student named Isaiah felt like school employees were closely watching him. Then an administrator reported him to Bradley village police after catching a glimpse of another student handing Isaiah a vaping device in a bathroom.

At the high school, which is patrolled by 10 security guards and a police officer, 10% of students are Black. But Black students received 21% of the 137 tickets written there from the start of the 2018-19 school year through the end of October. White students, who make up more than 68% of enrollment, got 60% of the tickets.

In Bradley, as in many other Illinois communities, students ticketed in schools are funneled into quasi-judicial hearings designed for adults and overseen by the local municipality. At the hearing for Isaiahs ticket at Bradleys village hall in November, the hearing officer asked Isaiah to admit or deny that he had a vaping device at school. Isaiahs mom encouraged him to say deny so the hearing officer would allow him to describe what led to the ticket.

Isaiah explained that he had immediately handed the vaping device back to his friend. He said he had been searched by administrators including being made to remove his socks and shoes and no device was found.

The hearing officer found Isaiah not liable for possession of an electronic vaping device a rare vindication in a ticketing case. But the village imposes a $50 fee for attending the hearing, which Isaiah still had to pay.

Isaiahs mother, Catherine Hilgeman, said in an interview that she was upset school officials had questioned and searched her son without contacting her. She said she told her son he had learned a lesson: You are a young Black male. You already have something against you. You shouldnt, but you do its the color of your skin. When somebody looks at you they automatically think, Theyre up to no good.

Christian, a multiracial student ticketed in the fall, described a strikingly similar incident. Another student, who saw in a mirror that a school administrator was walking into the bathroom, quickly handed his vape pen to Christian, who put it in his pocket, the family said.

Christian, 16, was required to appear at a ticket hearing in Bradley on a January afternoon. Most of the people ordered to attend that day were high school students, and most of them, including Christian, had been ticketed for possession of vaping devices. The hearing officer ordered Christian to pay $175 a $125 fine plus a $50 hearing fee and then asked if he would pay that day or if he needed time.

Take some time, Christian said. He is paying the fine off with money he earned at his job at Little Caesars. By early May, he had paid $113, his mother said.

If students dont pay their fines quickly, Bradley is one of many Illinois municipalities that have sent the debt to collection agencies or to a program run by the state comptrollers office that deducts money from tax refunds or payroll checks.

At DeKalb High School, west of Chicago, nearly half the tickets issued during the past three years went to Black students, even though only about 20% of the students are Black. Between the start of the school year and mid-November, police wrote about 30 tickets to students, and Black students received 22 of them, or 73%. Most of the tickets were for fighting, followed by cannabis possession.

Tickets were also written at the two middle schools in DeKalb Community Unit School District 428, to students as young as 11, city records show. Black students make up about a quarter of the enrollment at each school, but at Huntley Middle School at least 63% of tickets went to Black students during the last three school years. At Clinton Rosette Middle School, tickets did not always specify race, but at least 40% went to Black students.

At four DeKalb hearings that reporters attended in the fall and winter, nearly all of the students were Black or Latino. All of the adults involved in the hearing process the prosecutor, the clerk, the bailiff, the hearing officer were white.

Records from the last three school years show that DeKalb students were most commonly cited for fighting, a violation that comes with a minimum $300 fine. The city gives students a choice: Pay within 21 days of getting the ticket, or attend a hearing. At the hearing, students can contest the ticket or plead liable, which usually results in an order to do community service. Hearings are held twice a month at 9 a.m. at the police station, and students have to miss school to be there.

If the students dont pay and dont show up on their hearing date, the fine increases to the maximum allowed by state law: $750, plus a $100 administrative fee. If the fines and fees are not paid, the debt can be sent to collections.

Terri Jackson, whose 14-year-old daughter agreed to perform 25 hours of community service after being ticketed for fighting, said she thinks the reason more tickets are written to Black children is simple: Theyre paying attention to what the Black kids do.

At a hearing in November, a 15-year-old boy who had been caught with cannabis vape cartridges at the high school received 15 hours of community service; he would be fined $250 if he didnt complete it. After he went before the hearing officer, he told reporters he thought white students were disciplined less harshly at his school.

Theres differences. There are situations when they get caught and not punished like we do, said the sophomore, who identifies as Black and Latino.

Brian Wright, principal at Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School, called his schools ticketing disparity disturbing and perhaps a reflection of racial bias.

We have to assume that there is a population of our white students doing the same things that our Black students are, but why are they not getting ticketed but our Black students are? Wright asked. It is bothersome to me, but it is good information to take back to our assistant principals to see.

Wright said the school already is concerned about disproportionate suspensions. He also said the school has been working to address racial equity and inclusivity during the past few years by diversifying the books in the curriculum and including more students of color in Advanced Placement courses.

Administrators at other schools who were interviewed for this story said the disparities in ticketing at their schools are not the result of racial bias.

The police are just being responsive to the actions of the students, DeKalb High School Principal James Horne said. Where you see in the data the disproportionate numbers, the unfortunate part is there is disproportionate trauma that is affecting certain parts of the community. He added: Were just being responsive to the challenge of our students.

Horne said his high school doesnt only respond to student misbehavior by involving police; it also uses restorative justice practices that bring students together to resolve conflicts with discussion and problem-solving. The school tries to avoid discipline that causes students to miss class time, Horne said.

Reporters sent DeKalb district officials questions about disparities at the two middle schools. They did not address those questions but wrote in a statement that they have been taking actions to better support their students and are developing a new districtwide code of conduct.

Disproportionate ticketing also occurs at schools with relatively few Black students, the analysis found. East Peoria Community High School, for example, has about 25 Black students in an average year. But Black students received 11 of the tickets police wrote during the past three school years. Thats 10% of all police tickets, even though Black students represent just 2% of the schools enrollment. This school year, records show Black students received six of the 34 tickets police issued through mid-January, or about 18%. These totals dont include truancy tickets, as those were issued by a school employee.

Marjorie Greuter, the East Peoria Community High School superintendent, disputed any suggestion that students are ticketed unfairly at her school.

Were consistent in our referral for city ordinance violations. If a kid is vaping, it doesnt matter male, female, white, Black, low-income, high-income theyre going to get referred to the school police officer, Greuter said.

If its disproportionate, its because the offense is disproportionate or the offender is disproportionate.

Bloom Township High School District 206 has two schools: Bloom Trail in Steger and Bloom in Chicago Heights. The Chicago Heights police department does not ticket students at Bloom, but Steger police have agreed to ticket students at Bloom Trail when contacted by school officials.

They call us and we ticket them, said Steger Police Chief Greg Smith, who acknowledged that when he got into a fight at school as a teenager in the mid-1980s, his dean and football coach took care of it.

I think the world has changed. What happened in the past, it wouldnt be unheard of for a dean to smack a kid upside the head that, they just dont do anymore.

Now, he said, it is the police officers problem, and its unfortunate, but everything has come down to We need the police. We are handling a lot more issues than police used to.

In Chicago Heights, Deputy Police Chief Mikal Elamin said officers will arrest a student if necessary if the school or a victim signs a complaint but the department doesnt think ticketing is appropriate. Police have not ticketed students at Bloom High School in at least the last three years, records show.

I cant tell you that we have never ticketed, but I can say that it is not our policy to target or focus on our high school students. We wouldnt do that, Elamin said. He said issuing tickets would be punishing the parent because students typically arent capable of paying.

In an emailed response to reporters questions, Bloom Township district officials said administrators call the police when someone is injured or at risk of physical harm, when there is severe and potentially dangerous school disruption or when a students behavior has willfully interrupted the learning process beyond what school workers can handle.

Overall, we work to communicate that the school is not the place to handle your disagreements physically, according to the email. We are intentional about addressing these situations fairly and equitably, regardless of students race or gender.

After reviewing the districts own data and in response to the findings of the Tribune-ProPublica investigation, the Bloom Township superintendent scheduled a meeting with the Steger police chief to revisit their approach to police involvement in discipline.

We want to be on the right side of things and do what is best for children, said Latunja Williams, the districts assistant superintendent for human resources.

Decades of research on school discipline has shown that when a judgment call is involved such as whether to ticket someone for disorderly conduct for being disruptive or profane students of color are disciplined more severely.

The Tribune and ProPublica were able to analyze both the race of students and the alleged violations for about 3,000 tickets that police wrote in 34 districts. While Black students made up about 11% of the enrollment in schools in these districts, they received nearly 29% of the tickets related to student behavior, including disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, insubordination, activity constituting a public nuisance and prohibited conduct on school property. White students represented about 45% of enrollment and 44% of the tickets related to student behavior. Black students also were disproportionately ticketed for fighting, assault and other offenses related to physical aggression.

Other types of violations, such as possession of drug paraphernalia, were more in proportion to Black students enrollment. For several other racial groups, including Asian students and Native American students, there were too few tickets to draw meaningful conclusions.

Russ Skiba, a professor emeritus at Indiana University and a leading researcher on educational inequity, said U.S. schools began suspending Black students disproportionately for behavioral offenses in the 1970s, after districts were forced to fully desegregate. In the 1990s, he added, police became a more common presence in schools, exacerbating inequalities in discipline.

There is an abundance of research that shows that Black students are not engaging in more severe behavior, that they receive punishments that are harsher for the same behavior, Skiba said. Black and brown kids understand, and it doesnt go unnoticed, that they are being punished more often, suspended more often and, in your case, ticketed more often.

Few studies have examined ticketing of students, including how race may play a role. But an analysis published this year by the American Civil Liberties Union found police cited Black students in the Erie City School District in Pennsylvania for minor infractions at four times the rate of white students.

And in Texas, the Texas Appleseed advocacy group uncovered disparities in police ticketing in multiple school districts, leading state lawmakers to pass legislation in 2013 that prohibits officers from issuing tickets for disrupting class and other misbehavior at school. In the states Bryan Independent School District, police had issued 53% of tickets for disruption of class to Black students during the 2011-2012 school year, even though that group made up about 21% of the districts enrollment. U.S. Department of Education investigators looking into the Bryan district found at least 10 incidents where Black students received harsher punishment than white students for similar conduct.

Federal data tracks how often schools involve police in a school incident, which is called a police referral, and whether an arrest was made, as well as the race of the students involved. The data does not track ticketing or other possible outcomes. In Illinois, Black students accounted for about 17% of enrollment but 42% of the students referred to police in the 2017-18 school year, according to the federal data.

The gap is similar with suspensions and expulsions. State data shows that in the 2019-20 school year about 44% of the students suspended or expelled from Illinois public schools were Black.

Citing the federal and state data, Illinois state education and justice officials in March urged schools to evaluate their punitive discipline policies, including suspensions and expulsions, and the impact of police in their schools. They said the expanding role of police officers at school raises concerns about a disparate impact on students of color, particularly Black students.

It was the first guidance the state has issued to school districts with the intent of ensuring that disciplinary practices do not violate civil rights law. Illinois State Board of Education spokesperson Jackie Matthews said punishing students for behaviors perceived as defiance or misconduct does nothing to address the reasons the students are behaving that way.

These tactics disproportionately impact students of color and increase the odds of students dropping out and experiencing involvement with the criminal justice system, Matthews wrote in an email.

The recent state guidance did not mention tickets, which the Tribune-ProPublica investigation found to be the most common outcome when police get involved in school incidents.

Amy Meek, chief of the Civil Rights Bureau in the Illinois attorney generals office, said schools can be in violation of civil rights laws if their policies and practices have a disparate impact on certain groups of people even if it is not intentional.

Ticketing students falls within the umbrella of concerns related to disparate impact and is something that we definitely look forward to looking at in more depth, Meek said.

School districts have an ongoing obligation to annually revisit their discipline policies, she said. This is a prime opportunity for them to look at their data and take a look at practices that they may be employing that impose an unjustified disparate impact because of race.

Harold Jordan, nationwide education equity coordinator at the ACLU, said the U.S. Department of Education should be specifically tracking police ticketing at schools as part of its Civil Rights Data Collection, which is used to monitor whether schools provide equal opportunities to all students. The education department did not respond to a request for comment.

I think its significant because its an indicator of the extent to which theres a growing amount of collaboration between schools and police thats outright harmful, Jordan said.

He said that while some incidents at school are serious, most discipline is for minor infractions. Two kids can do essentially the same thing and be treated quite differently in how they are disciplined, and especially whether police are involved, Jordan said. Too often, race and ethnicity are factors.

Bloom Township High School District 206 is on an Illinois State Board of Education list of districts that, for three consecutive years, suspended or expelled students of color disproportionately. In the 2019-20 school year, 88.5% of students suspended at Bloom Trail High School were Black, though Black students make up only about 54% of the student body.

Concerned about those numbers, district officials have focused this year on alternative ways to correct student behavior, they wrote in an email. The district is one of six in the state participating in training sessions focused on improving equity in student discipline, funded by the Illinois State Board of Education with pandemic relief funds.

Bloom Township school administrators are working with Loyola University Chicago school discipline experts to get certified in restorative justice practices. In February, all school employees were trained on positive behavior interventions. The district also has partnered with the University of Illinois at Springfield to learn about empathetic instruction, a way of handling student misbehavior in less punitive ways.

Our ultimate goal is to ensure a safe learning environment for all students and the school community, while proactively addressing the challenging behaviors of some of our neediest students, district officials wrote in an emailed response.

But ticketing remains a central part of Bloom Trails disciplinary process, and by mid-April of this school year, all but six of the 54 tickets police wrote at the school went to Black students. No white students were ticketed.

Two of the tickets written to Black students went to the Posleys sons, Josiah and Jeremiah, who were 16 and 14 at the time.

Josiah said he made a bad decision to meet another student in the bathroom after a disagreement. Once there, he said, he got jumped by several boys and defended himself. I didnt instigate it. I didnt cause it, said Josiah, who excels in algebra and literature and wants to be an engineer. Im not like that.

Jeremiah said he followed Josiah into the bathroom out of concern for his brother. He didnt hit anyone, he said, but one of the boys punched him in the face. At least five boys were involved in the fight, and a security guard who tried to break it up needed four stitches after a student not one of the brothers pushed him into a window, according to the district.

After the fight, school officials suspended the brothers and threatened to expel Josiah, a junior, for mob action. A meeting also was called to review the special education plan for Jeremiah, a freshman who has autism, and his parents feared the school would try to transfer him.

The family was shocked by the severity of the punishment for two boys who had not had previous discipline issues and were good students. They decided to find a lawyer and challenge the schools actions. Bloom Trail later withdrew the threat of expulsion and told both boys to come back to school.

But by then, the school had already asked Steger police to write tickets. Both boys, as well as three other students who were in the bathroom, were cited for disorderly conduct.

The Posleys said involving police added a layer of unnecessary punishment and worry for the family. The police department sent letters to their home notifying the boys that they had to appear at a hearing in November at the police station.

Jackie Ross, an attorney at Loyola University Chicagos ChildLaw Clinic who specializes in school discipline and special education, said she took on Josiah and Jeremiahs case because she felt the boys were being treated unfairly. The same goes for many others, she said.

There is this gross secret practice going on of fining families of color who are largely unrepresented and making a lot of money from it, Ross said.

The school district said officials couldnt talk about the discipline of individual students.

As the brothers November hearing date neared, Elizabeth Posley worried that Josiahs longer hair wouldnt be considered presentable. Her husband agreed, even though Josiah thought it was unfair that he would have to change the way he looked to avoid being stereotyped.

In my mind, because you look a certain way as an African American child, youre going to be judged a certain way, Elizabeth Posley said. Rodney Posley used his clippers to cut Josiahs hair.

Both boys wore suits to the hearing, Jeremiahs from his eighth-grade graduation. The family lined up several character references, including one from a church leader. Three Bloom Trail employees a guidance counselor, a social worker and a teacher signed a letter praising Jeremiah and his parents for their positive involvement in school.

Jeremiah is a hard worker, compassionate and respectful of others, they wrote.

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Black Students in Illinois are far more likely to be ticketed by police for school behavior than white students - KTVI Fox 2 St. Louis