I'm not surprised to see that the suspension rate has risen this year. I'm not surprised either that the cited article interviews not one single UFT member. Fortunately, they ask Mona David her opinion. David runs some parent group which, as far as I know, consists of at least her and some guy from Staten Island who wish to kill teacher tenure. Why bother asking teachers what they think?

The article cites reasons suspensions are given, though:

Students are suspended for such infractions as attacking staff or other students, destroying school property or bringing weapons to campus.

Fortunately, the city is looking to take a "restorative justice" approach to these matters. So if you or one of your students get the crap kicked out of you at school, the attacker will get to sit around and talk about just why he hit you over the head with that two by four. When we finally discover the root cause, you and your assaulter can hug it out. What's better than that?

Let's say that some student offers to kill your entire class. Doubtless he's misunderstood. You should talk to him, and find out why he feels that way. Let's say you respond, and he once again signals his intention to kill everyone. Clearly he's had some childhood trauma that put him in this unfortunate situation. There's a conflict between him and the entire class. The only thing to do is set up a mediation. He can explain why he wants to kill everyone while you and the rest of the class explain why you don't want to die.

Hidden and buried feelings are simply unhealthy. So it's important that you get them right out there in the open. As educators, it's important that we not just skim the surface. Now sure, this is not 100% effective. I mean, sometimes students actually show up to schools and kill everybody. But don't you want to be absolutely sure you've exhausted all restorative means at your disposal before you resort to something as drastic as suspension?

I'm kind of old school, so you can't really go by me. Once, I was teaching a class, and a student I'd never seen walked in. I told him he'd have to leave. He was offended by that, and thus he announced to the class that he was going to blow my head off with a 45. Clearly it was my fault. I should've taken the time to ask him why he felt he needed to come into my classroom, as opposed to whatever one he belonged in. Had I taken the time to understand him, perhaps he wouldn't have felt the need to threaten my life in front of 30 witnesses.

But that's not all I did. After the class, I ran around the whole building and sought to ascertain the identity of the kid. When I finally did, rather than apologize face to face for failing to understand his needs, I wrote him up to the dean. Not only that, but I followed up a few days later. I asked what happened, and the dean told me they had called the kid's parents. I asked why he wasn't suspended. He had problems, they told me.

Now here's how callous I am--I said if he had problems that caused him to threaten people's lives in public, he did not belong in the same building as my students. Can you imagine my level of insensitivity? Even now I feel wracked with guilt over my unreasonable requests.

Statistics show that students who are suspended graduate at lower rates than students who are not suspended. Clearly the suspensions are damaging to student self-esteem. Now I know there are Doubting Thomases out there who will say, "Hey, NYC Educator, don't they graduate at lower rates because they bring weapons to school, or run around assaulting people and threatening to kill them?"

To you doubters, I say this. Last Wednesday UFT passed a resolution for more restorative justice and less suspension. And they must be right, because E4E also supported it, and they're endorsed by Bill Gates.

What more evidence could anyone ask?

I can't really address what it means to suspend kids in K-2. I've never taught K-2 and I have no idea on what grounds suspension is warranted. I don't picture 5-year-olds committing offenses that merit them being removed, but clearly it's been happening. This, of course, would place undue pressure on a parent. If I had to suddenly scramble for day care for my 5-year-old I'd probably panic. On the other hand, I'd also do whatever was in my power to ensure I'd never have to do it again.

I teach bigger kids, often as not bigger than I am, and I don't suppose their parents need worry about child care as much. I've advocated for suspension exactly twice in over thirty years of teaching. The first time was when a kid walked into my classroom for no reason I could discern. I asked him to leave, and when I became insistent he offered to blow my head of with a 45.

I didn't much appreciate that offer, so I did a little homework and identified him. He was a special education student. When I wrote him up his parents had to come to school. I protested, and said that kids who walk around threatening people's lives ought to face something more tangible, i.e. suspension. A special ed. dean told me the kid was brain damaged and couldn't help himself. I said if that were the case, he ought not to be in the same building with my students, but I lost that argument.

The second time was in my classroom. A student, with whom I'd had no problem ever, while exiting my class, thought if would be a good idea to find out what would happen if he pulled out a chair from me as I was about to sit on it. As you can imagine, I went down a little farther than I had intended. I was not hurt, but I was pretty angry. I asked that he be suspended. A dean suggested three days, but the principal found it even less amusing than the dean and suspended him for five days.

I've read a few pieces that oppose suspension. The one I recall most clearly was in the Daily News. It suggested that students who were suspended graduated at a lower rate than those who were not. This didn't surprise me at all. What surprised me was the conclusion that the lower graduation rate was the result of the suspensions. I thought the suspensions were likely the result of behavior which concurrently led to a lower graduation rate.

Of course now kids can tell their teachers to perform vile and unnatural acts and the only recourse is to call the parents. Calling parents is great, and I do it all the time. I often do it to preclude behavior that would result in failure or other negative consequences. I'm not sure, though, if it would be effective to call and say, "Your kid just told the teacher to go screw himself, and if this happens again, we will call you again to notify you that he once again told the teacher to go screw himself."

I've seen suspension done in building, which to me at least, seems a lot less attractive than, "You just told the teacher to go screw himself, so we're giving you a week off." I'm not an expert on suspension, but I think it's a very bad idea to take one of our few options away. Quite often the threat of suspension precludes the need to take such a drastic measure. Taking away the threat is not so smart.

I don't really know very well what the alternatives are. If Carmen Fariña wants to double and triple down on guidance counselors and social workers to deal with this stuff, I applaud her. But it's a mistake to burden our already overburdened support staff with additional tasks and leave it at that.

I'm open to alternatives, but hoping for the best is not one I'm ready to embrace.