Report: Black and Hispanic students in New Jersey public schools are suspended ‘disproportionately’

State parliamentarian: “No matter what happens, it is unacceptable. You have to do better.”

A recent report found that black and Hispanic students in New Jersey public schools were “disproportionately” excluded from classes compared to their white peers.

And progressive lawmakers and interest groups are not happy.

Black students make up just over 15 percent of the state’s school population, but represent nearly 30 percent of teacher/administrator disciplinary warnings and police reports. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

Overall, nine percent of black students in New Jersey were suspended during the 2022-23 school year, along with over four percent of Hispanic students. In contrast, just under three percent of white students and 1.2 percent of Asian students were suspended.

According to the report, the Collingswood and Haddon Township school districts – where 40 percent and 20 percent of students, respectively, are minority students – had the largest racial disparities in discipline.

The Inquiry notes that in the former case, an incident involving an alleged “white fraternity” occurred around the time of this year’s spring break. Superintendent Fred McDowell noted that the district had “restructured” its leadership team to “rethink current practices and behavioral responses from a restorative perspective (…)”.

The newspaper also reports on a black mother who “fought” to get her daughter back at Kingsway Regional HS after a “long-term suspension.” It does not explain why the girl was suspended, but notes that the mother “felt (her daughter) was excluded because she is black.”

Mary Anne Degenhart of the group Embracing Race (which “seeks to bring people of different backgrounds, faiths and life experiences together to have an authentic dialogue about racism”) said of the report: “I can’t say I’m shocked.”

MORE: Biden’s DOE wants to introduce racial quotas into school discipline policy

Joe Johnson of the American Civil Liberties Union-New Jersey claimed the disciplinary disparities were due to “racial bias.” He added: “In an ideal world, the police would only be called when necessary (…) There is still a lot of work to be done to figure out why there are so many reports.”

But Christopher Heilig, superintendent of the Rancocas Valley Regional High School District, said the report “does not provide a complete picture of the climate and culture of each individual school.”

“We fear that (…) these data will lead to dangerous misperceptions about the condition of many of our New Jersey schools and the intentions of our educators, and will ultimately jeopardize support for and progress on many equity initiatives,” he said.

Democratic State Senator Andrew Zwicker (in the picture)who supported the law requiring districts to report demographic-based discipline data, said, “If your district has large disparities in discipline based on race, you have a real problem (…) no matter what happens, that is unacceptable. You have to do better.”

Last year, Zwicker sponsored a bill that would strip state funding from schools that “ban” sexually explicit books like “Gender Queer.”

MORE: No, teachers are NOT racist because there are so many different racist disciplinary measures

IMAGES: Shutterstock.com; State of New Jersey

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