By Brittany Joiner, a youth leader of West End Civic Association

In the past year, the Hartford, Connecticut school district in issued 10,000 suspensions in a district with about 24,000 students, an increase of 45 percent from the previous year.

In addition, more than a quarter of the students have been suspended more than once. Equally outrageous, 98 kindergarteners were suspended during that same year.

Youth leaders from the Youth Council, which is part of the West End Civic Association (WECA) decided to engage the Hartford Board of Education. The purpose was to work on lowering suspension rates and finding alternatives to out-of-school suspensions. Members of the Youth Council met with the Board of Education and Superintendent administrators in May. At the meeting, the Youth Council laid out their proposed alternatives to out-of-school suspensions, such as:

• Community service;
• In-school suspensions;
• Peer mediation;
• Alternative schools;
• Youth courts;
• Classroom Management Training for teachers; and
• Diversity Training for teachers and administrators.

During the meeting, Youth Council members performed a skit highlighting the dangers of out-of-school suspensions by portraying a suspended student who ended up on the street and hanging out with others who were skipping school and doing drugs. The suspended student ended up arrested on a drug charge. As a result, the Youth Council exposed the suspension epidemic to the media and the public. Under public pressure, the following Board of Education meeting changed the agenda to debate the suspension issue."We believe that outside suspension doesn't prove a point, and is not taken as a punishment for most students. Instead, it is taken as a vacation and is a precious amount of time wasted for students when education is needed," said Philip Coutier of WECA. The West End Civic Association Youth Council has had a follow up meeting with Amador Mojica, Assistant Superintendent for Student Support Services. Mr. Mojica has committed to work with the Youth Council to make changes to the school suspension policies.