Jefferson City Public Schools' discipline incident numbers increased in the first quarter of 2017 compared to last year, but regardless of the reasons for the increase among all students, significant racial disparities persist in who tends to face disciplinary action and specific kinds of consequences.
In JCPS Chief of Learning Brian Shindorf's presentation on discipline to the district's Board of Education two weeks ago, he said students who are black represent 20 percent of the district's student population but represented 39.5 percent of the district's discipline incidents.
Students who are white represent 62.8 percent of the district's student body, but only 41.8 percent of its discipline incidents.
Put another way, 26.7 percent of the district's black students received office referrals for discipline in the first quarter of the 2017-18 school year, compared to 11 percent of the district's white students.
Overall, non-white students represent 37.2 percent of the student body but 58.2 percent of discipline incidents.
Such disparities in school discipline have been pointed out by community members at recent town hall and discussion events hosted by local churches and the school district.
Shindorf said the district is working with the state's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to find answers as to why such disparities exist.
In terms of who faces disciplinary consequences, he said, "The state department has sent notice that we're disproportionate in the number of black students with IEP - special education students that are black - compared to the non-black special education students."
DESE said: "A data analysis indicates Jefferson City Public Schools has a discrepancy in the rates of suspensions and expulsions for greater than 10 days in a school year for children with disabilities as compared to nondisabled peers based on race/ethnicity. This identification is based on an analysis of 2015-16 and 2016-17 district data for students who are black."
State education departments are required by federal education disability law to report such discrepancies, and the state has to annually examine all schools' discipline discrepancy rates.
District-level comprehensive reviews are mandated when discrepancies are identified for two years in a row, and DESE said the goal of a review is "to determine if the disproportionate representation might be the result of policies, practices or procedures."
Shindorf said DESE will look at the reasons students are sent to school offices, the consequences for all students who were referred for the same reasons, and whether consequences were applied fairly and consistently.
"The comprehensive review includes a self-assessment, file review and interviews. For each subsequent, consecutive year that a district's data indicates a significant discrepancy in discipline rates, the district will receive a modified review," including a self-assessment and interviews, according to DESE documents.
DESE said Jefferson City's review should be completed by Dec. 31. Once the district receives DESE's report, JCPS will have to "develop strategies and timelines for correcting each indicator not in compliance identified through the monitoring review," though the DESE documents do not detail more specific consequences for districts with ongoing discrepancies.
Information regarding the number or characteristics of students with IEPs in the JCPS district was not immediately available to the News Tribune
However, other JCPS data show students who are black generally represent a disproportionate percentage of the district's discipline incidents and face an even more disproportionate share of the most common disciplinary consequences.
Among all students, the most common outcome of an office referral was an in-school suspension - 19.9 percent of the time. Behind this were conferences with students at 16.6 percent of the time; out-of-school suspensions, 11.2 percent; contacting parents, 9.7 percent; and loss of privileges, 9.6 percent.
For black, Hispanic and white students, the most likely outcome of an office referral in the first quarter of the school year through Nov. 3 was in-school suspension, with such a suspension slightly more likely for black and Hispanic students.
However, the 20 percent of the district's students who are black or African-American received more than 43 percent of the in-school suspensions assigned in the first quarter, whereas the 62.8 percent of students who are white received a little less than 40 percent.
The level of disparity exists among all of the top five most common outcomes for an office referral. The 20 percent of JCPS students who are black or African-American received more than 40 percent of conferences with students, more than 43 percent of out-of-school suspensions, more than 46 percent of contacts with parents and almost 45 percent of loss of privileges.
Multi-racial students face a smaller disciplinary disparity. The 8.7 percent of the district's students who are multi-racial receive more than 11 percent of in-school suspensions, 15 percent of conferences with students, more than 15 percent of out-of-school suspensions, 17 percent of contacts with parents and more than 12 percent of loss of privileges.
Hispanic students tend to receive a smaller share of disciplinary consequences than their 5 percent proportion of the student body, though Hispanic students receive about 5.7 percent of in-school suspensions.
The reasons for the disparities do not seem as simple as black or African-American students in the district tending to misbehave more compared to other students.
The News Tribune does not know any characteristics of the 1,302 students who were offenders in the first quarter, but JCPS' information provides the total number of offenders at each school building. By pairing that information with building-level demographic information, the number of offenders per black student at a building can be calculated.
Pioneer Trail Elementary School had 37 black or African-American students enrolled as of Nov. 9 - the fourth-smallest number of any of the district's schools - yet had the highest rate of total offenders per black student, 1.7.
Thorpe Gordon Elementary School had 159 black or African-American students enrolled at the time - the most of any JCPS elementary school - but its rate of offenders per black students was only 0.16.
The district's high school and two middle schools - the buildings with the most students overall, the most students of color and the most discipline incidents - had lower rates of offenders per black student than North, Callaway Hills and Pioneer Trail elementary schools.
Racial disparities in discipline have persisted over time, too. Though DESE's current review has been launched based on two consecutive years of data, data on JCPS' own dashboard available through its website show black students have been disciplined disproportionately at least since the 2013-14 school year.
In 2014, the district's black students had a discipline rate per student of 1.64, and white students had a discipline rate per student of 0.58. In other words, black students in the district then were 2.8 times more likely to be disciplined than white students.
Since 2014, through the 2016-17 school year, black student enrollment increased about 4.2 percent and white student enrollment decreased about 7.2 percent. In the same time frame, the rate of discipline incidents per white student increased 21.8 percent and increased about 37 percent per black student.
That means black students were 3.2 times more likely to be disciplined last year than their white peers.