Discipline in CNMI public schools

School leaders today are often faced with daily decisions regarding the discipline of students. Violations of local school board policies, school rules, and local or state laws often occur at nearly every public school across America and in the CNMI. Whether it is at the elementary or secondary level, and often in the absence of parental guidance, public schools face the daunting challenge of modeling, modifying, and mastering student behavior and performance. The National Center for Education Statistics (http://nces.ed.gov)reports that U.S. public schools suspends over three million students per year. That’s a staggering number even on a national scale.

There is a virtual plethora of data regarding discipline in schools and how it relates to performance available online, describing how it affects areas such as student achievement, accountability, behavior, school safety, etc. Effective school leaders often use this data to help develop their school policies. What most school leaders would agree on is that whilst there is a need for discipline policy, many schools are left without the resources needed to effectively manage and create programs in schools that help reduce suspensions, such as those that involve crisis counseling, resources rooms, medical and psychological referrals systems, and even simple health centers and nursing on campus. Thus schools are left to use the tools they are given, which is often simply state board or school level policies.

Although many policies provide for alternatives to out-of-school suspensions, the fact is most schools lack the resources for such programs. School cleanups, in-house suspensions, special projects etc. all require additional supervision and that equals time, personnel and ultimately money, which schools do not have. However, some schools in America have been able to effectively create school discipline policies and practices that are reducing out of school suspensions. These schools are often the same schools that have several common traits, i.e., high rates of parental involvement, increased counseling services, a high score on the school climate index, and external financial resources for funding of alternative programs. Unfortunately most of these schools are found in affluent neighborhoods and thus schools in rural areas continue to face the challenge.

In the CNMI, and consistent with many rural school districts, there is limited funding for additional personnel and programs. After-school program funds are spent on academic program reinforcement aimed at meeting the systemwide goals for performance. This is often due to that fact that federal funding usually has specific guidelines as to what it can and can’t be spent on leaving the schools to offer only programs they can versus what they need.

The recent data on suspensions that was revealed regarding the CNMI provides evidence that increased funding efforts may be warranted in helping to reduce suspensions. However, the CNMI data showed unrealistically high number of suspensions, especially for one high school, i.e., 1,784 suspensions during a single school year. A simple mathematics rule applied would have revealed that the data either was seriously flawed or there was a serious problem. With a total number of 180 school days, that would mean the school suspended on average 10 students every single day of the school year. That is clearly a serious error in data reporting. For a school to suspend that many students each day, the paperwork alone would require additional staff, not to mention the line at the door for the required parental conferences. Unfortunately, the person reporting the data failed to properly investigate and verify the data with the source at the school level even after being given the opportunity to do so.

It is this type of erroneous and reckless reporting that can often skew the image of public schools and thus inhibit the system from gaining support in the public sector. The numbers reported were taken from actual totals of infractions and not actual suspensions. The example is that a single student could have as many as five infractions in a single event, i.e. use of foul language, disrespect to school staff, destruction of school property, cutting class, and smoking. This is an event where a student is not in class and subsequently found smoking in the bathroom, gets mad, uses foul language at the staff, hits the paper towel rack and leaves the building. Now whilst the student will be suspended, the charges will be listed on a computer to include all offenses that fall under suspension. In the case of the data reported on the one high school, the data was never asked to be disaggregated by the author to find out the true numbers, which would show considerably less number of actual suspensions.

Responsible reporting of educational data is imperative if it is to be believable. If public reporting of data is erroneous it may take years to correct or dispel as the Internet will continue to make the information available and may also impede the schools or system’s ability to appear compliant with federal policies and regulations regarding continued funding.

The CNMI public school system has been highly effective in reducing discipline in schools over the years since the days where betel nut spit lined the walls of every building at the only public high school the CNMI to today’s state of the art campuses and facilities that are now available to CNMI students and their families.

Current data that would show an increase in suspensions is aligned with the increase in accountability. A decade ago students were not getting suspended for most of the offenses that were punishable under the law and as a result there were significant disruptions, damage to school property, and school violence that went unabated. As the system developed a more skilled workforce and administrators became well versed in public school policy, it was just a matter of time before “enforcement” of the rules already in place occurred, and this is why there “appears” to be an increase in activity. It’s not so much as things have changed as it is the students are being held more accountable for behavior.

Public schools in the CNMI continue to develop programs that work and build on school climate in order to help reduce the need for out-of-school suspensions and the data shows that this is working. The most recent data on student performance shows nearly every public school increasing student achievement annually with many exceeding statewide expectations. Public school is a public concern. Parents must be partners in the education of their child and their child’s school.