Suspensions fluctuate
I've had my hands on a preliminary, hard-copy report of short-term suspensions for about a week now, but problems getting apples-to-apples trend data has prevented me from doing a full analysis and story on it. During the 2006-07 school year, GCS had 12,386 suspensions, according to the preliminary report. That compares to a state official total of 13,236 suspensions in 2006 and 12,861 in 2005.
(School safety coordinator Anthony Scales expects to send the preliminary report to the state next week and when he does, I've asked to get an electronic version this time. I will post it and previos preliminary reports once I do.)
Unfortunately, once the district sends the Department of Public Instruction the numbers for verification, the state takes over, publishes a final report online, but does not send the numbers back to the district (according to Scales). Even though the preliminary and final numbers are usually close, I cannot compare suspensions by number of students or by school, because the state only publishes district totals.You can figure out where I'm going: I can get a good idea of how schools are doing individually but there's a chance the numbers could be off.
In the past I have compared preliminary numbers in stories, but I am not sure I feel comfortable doing that again, knowing that those numbers are now obsolete.
I spoke with Amos Quick this week about the school climate task force. As soon as they determine the members, I will let you know.
Comments (8)
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Morgan,
Thank you for this information. I certainly understand your reluctance to publish the numbers given the circumstances. It makes me wonder if the circumstances are by design so as to not allow easy-to-compare data.
Will you post the preliminary report that you received?
Thanks.
Posted on June 28, 2007 5:53 PM
Quest,
I won't be able to post it online until I get an electronic version. The hard copy I have is about 200 pages.
I don't have any reason to think there is a conspiracy with the data-keeping, given that I have made comparisons with preliminary data in the past. I think the state publishes the minimum because they are dealing with so many districts and its easier to just have totals instead of complete breakdowns.
Posted on June 28, 2007 10:58 PM
One issue that always arises with the suspension data is that of repeat offenders.
At the 12/19/2005 BOE meeting, the staff was instructed to gather additional data on suspensions to be able to provide additional analysis.
Is there any breakdown of how many of the 12,386 suspensions were repeat violations? It would be interesting to see a table of number of suspensions and number of students - how many kids were suspended once, twice, three times, etc.
Posted on June 29, 2007 7:30 AM
Quest sees conspiracy everywhere. She has zero credibility!
Posted on June 29, 2007 9:21 AM
Look who says someone has zero credibility. It's sub-zero.
Posted on June 29, 2007 2:43 PM
What credibilty do you have RT? You have no data or facts, just racial attacks on anyone and everyone who posts on here.
Quest on the contrary either posts facts or interesting questions provoking only thought not hate!
RT, You have no credibility, only a heart filled with hatred.
Posted on June 29, 2007 11:18 PM
Contrary to what RT (aka Real Opinion) states, Quest has extreme credibiity even among many school board members who respect this person's well thought out opinion and proven facts. It is your posts however, RT aka RO, that people laugh at as unbelievable personally directed hatred rants which prove nothing.
Statistics are so easy to play with, design for specific purposes. Why do you think GCS needs a highly paid statistician who just keeps saying our schools need to improve (dahhhh), we need to do better. We could say that for free.
As requested by the board, we need these repeat suspension numbers in order to make some real comparisons. An easy way to reduce the suspension rate realistically is to eliminate the repeat offenders to alternative school setting environments. Think how this would affect the numbers if the frequent flyers (3 or more times suspended) were removed from these stats.
Posted on June 30, 2007 8:26 AM
It would help to have repeat offenders numbered and listed separately. However, I believe the board members were also interested in referrals versus actual suspensions and the types of offenses students were being suspended for. For example, are more students being referred than are suspended? Or are the referrals and suspensions about equal. Those numbers would tell you a lot, such as which teachers are having the most trouble with students.
Posted on July 2, 2007 11:32 AM