Beaufort County public schools hope to suspend fewer students

Students caught lying, cutting class and breaking uniform in Beaufort County public schools will be far less likely to face suspensions this school year.

A change to the Code of Student Conduct has eliminated in- and out-of-school suspensions as punishments for Level I offenses, like forgery, dishonesty, dress code violations and profanity. While severe and repeat offenses may escalate to Level II or III -- landing students in deeper trouble -- administrators hope the new policy will cut down on unnecessary suspensions and keep more students in class.

Principals will also have more discretion to propose alternatives to supsensions, such as Saturday detentions, work detail and evening classes, chief student services officer Gregory McCord said.

"We need to ensure that students are in school unless their behavior is so severe or disruptive that they need to be kept out," he said.

The district could not say how many students had been suspended in previous years for Level I offenses or for specific infractions.

Still, he said he's hopeful the new policy will keep more students in school.

"We don't know until we see," McCord said.

In 2013-14, the most recent year available, 3,107 students missed a total of 7,383 days of school due to in-school suspensions and 2,072 students missed 10,278 days of school for out-of-school suspensions.

While students given in-school suspensions dropped about 6 percent from the 2012-2013 year, they missed nearly 10 percent more class time.

Even more drastic, about 32 percent more students were given out-of-school suspensions in 2013-14 than in the previous year, and they missed 84 percent more days of school.

Though in-school suspensions are acceptable for Level I offenses, according to the U.S. Department of Education, not all school districts go to that length to curb bad behavior.

In Jasper and Charleston counties, for example, administrators leave discipline to the teachers when it comes to Level I offenses.

Those infractions, which are considered disorderly conduct, result in punishments like a parent-teacher conference, seat change, writing assignment or detention.

Still, Jasper County's discipline rates are far from modest. A quarter of its 2,800 students were suspended last year, according to spokesman John Williams.

While it's unclear whether students in Beaufort County have been suspended for Level I offenses, a report from the 2011-2012 school year shows several were recommended for expulsion.

That group included three high schoolers who broke the dress code and eight middle schoolers and nine high schoolers who used profanity.

McCord said he did not know specifics on those students' cases but noted a dress code violation was likely the last straw from a habitually disruptive student.

The results of the new policy will be clear in about three years, with the district using the upcoming school year as a baseline.

"We're gathering more data than we ever were before and looking more carefully at it and being guided by it," district spokesman Jim Foster said.

The district's statistics on suspensions do show that another trend, that black and Hispanic students are disproportionately suspended for breaking the rules.

Combined, the minorities made up about half of the student population last year but received 70 percent of the district's in-school suspensions and 74 percent of out-of-school suspensions.

Nationwide, black students are two to three times more likely to be suspended than white students, according to a 2012 study by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.

Though the district tracked the racial makeup of its disciplined students in 2013-2014, McCord said the disparity was not a factor in the district's decision to change the Code of Student Conduct.

"Here in the Beaufort County School District, we care about all our students," he said.

Follow reporter Rebecca Lurye on Twitter at twitter.com/IPBG_Rebecca.

This story was originally published August 19, 2015 at 5:51 PM with the headline "Beaufort County public schools hope to suspend fewer students."