Majority of Preschool Suspensions are Black Students, Data Shows – Charleston City Paper

Seventy percent of the preschool suspensions in the Charleston County School District (CCSD) after August 2020 involved a Black child, according to four years of the district’s data.

But from the 2021 school year through 2024, 24% of the 714 suspension incidents involved White children and nearly 5% involved Latinx students, according to the data.

It is difficult to clearly report the race and gender of students of the 3- to 5-year old students who were suspended because of how the data is reported. But school officials and an education advocacy group generally agree Black children spend the most time out of the classroom because of behavioral issues.

They do not agree, however, on how to interpret the data or the reasons for a higher suspension rate for Black students. For example, the school district’s analysis included data involving pre-kindergarteners (PK-3 and PK-4), but not kindergarteners. They also don’t agree with how to fix the problem.

Andy Pruitt, CCSD’s director of communications, said educators acknowledge and are “deeply concerned about the disparities in discipline and achievement data between students of color and their White peers. These inequities are unacceptable, and we are committed to taking meaningful, decisive action to address them.”

The school district recently released the suspension data to the Beloved Early Education and Care (BEE) Collective, a Tri-county advocacy group, and its research partner, Impact Stats in Buffalo, N.Y. The groups requested the data under the state’s Freedom of Information Act.

Continue reading at the source: Majority of preschool suspensions are Black students, data shows – Charleston City Paper