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Oakland schools to get suspension monitor

Jill Tucker

Updated 11:12 p.m., Thursday, September 27, 2012

Ahjae Johnson, 12, of Edna Brewer Middle School in Oakland watches his instructor show how to make a drum during manhood development class, which seeks to prevent suspensions by giving students focus. Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle / SF

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Facing a civil rights investigation for disciplining black students more harshly than their white peers, the Oakland school board voted Thursday to accept five years of federal monitoring as the district attempts to address the problem.

The agreement with the U.S. Department of Education shuts down the investigation, but it now means that at least until 2017 federal officials will be keeping tabs on 38 Oakland schools as they work to reduce the disproportionate suspension of minority students, especially African American boys.

Almost 20 percent of the district's African American males were suspended at least once last year, six times the rate of white boys.

In middle school, 1 out of every 3 black boys was suspended at least once.

"Historically, they have been the whipping boys in our district," Chris Chatmon, executive director of the district's African-American Male Achievement Office, said in a presentation to the board. "We are here today to ante up and reclaim our children."

The 28-page resolution approved by the board in a 6-0 vote outlines a five-year plan to address the needs of students in the 38 schools, including a requirement to offer mentoring, teacher training, parent education and programs to address the impact of trauma and community violence on student behavior.

The plan also emphasizes restorative justice, a way of addressing negative behavior without suspending students, which often leads to academic failure, research shows. Instead, restorative justice keeps students at school and includes meetings with students and parents, leading to the offender taking responsibility and making amends.

Programs to ease problems

District Superintendent Tony Smith said the agreement is a powerful and positive step that will force Oakland - regardless of who is elected to the school board or who is running the schools - to stay on track in reducing suspensions.

"The agreement codified efforts already in place," he said. "Everything that's in there, the board has already approved."

Several programs are already in place to mitigate behavioral problems in classrooms and fights on the playground, Smith said.

At Edna Brewer Middle School, 24 black male students gathered in a classroom after school for their daily manhood development class, part of the district's Office of African-American Male Achievement.

As the boys built drums out of wood and tape, their instructor, who goes only by Jahi, described the benefit of working with the boys, giving them help with their homework and encouragement to focus on school and their futures.

"We try to create this culture of success," he said. "We can't change what's happening outside in the world."

Eighth-grader William Bolanos, 13, said he'd had some trouble in the past at school, with a few suspensions on his record.

But that won't happen this year, with help from Jahi's class.

"It just shows you how to be a man, a leader, a big brother to people," he said. "I'm just going to try to get honor roll this year."

Not an easy task

While district officials are optimistic about programs already in place, they acknowledged it won't be easy to implement the five-year agreement.

The plan will cost the district millions to implement, which includes comprehensive and frequent documentation to prove compliance with the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Smith said he plans to ask foundations and community groups focused on discipline issues to help back the plan, which he believes will be a national model for other districts struggling with disproportionate suspensions.

Board member Alice Spearman noted that the district has been in the same situation before.

"To me, it's revisiting history again ... to solve exactly the same problems 10 to 20 years ago," Spearman said. "I'm very hopeful that this time we will try to do the right thing."

Officials at the Office for Civil Rights initiated the investigation in May after the Obama administration realized previous inquiries within the district over the same issues in the late 1990s and in 2006 lapsed without resolution.

Oakland now shows promise with its renewed effort already in place to combat suspension rates, officials at the Office for Civil Rights said.

"Everything showed us this is fertile ground for change," said Arthur Zeidman, regional director for the civil rights office.

Oakland is just one of hundreds if not thousands of districts across the country with disproportionate rates of suspension and expulsion between black students and their white peers.

For example, in the Manteca Unified and Jefferson Union High districts, 60 percent of African American students were suspended at least once in the 2009-10 school year, compared with 33 percent and 21 percent of whites, respectively, according to an August report by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA.

"Suspending is the easy way out," said Oakland board member Chris Dobbins, a former teacher. "I'm really excited about this."

Keeping students in school

The issue has garnered the attention of state education and law enforcement officials as well as policymakers, who announced plans for a public hearing in Los Angeles this month to address high suspension rates.

"We need to hold kids accountable and help them learn from their mistakes, but also keep them in school and on course to graduate," state Attorney General Kamala Harris said in a statement announcing the hearing.

Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jtucker@sfchronicle.com

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Oakland schools to get suspension monitor