The Disturbing Racial Disparities in How Duluth Public Schools Discipline Students
Do you think your students are fairly punished at school in Duluth? Or, do you think all students are treated equally in Duluth schools? The answer to both of these questions may be no. Rather, based on data released by the US Department of Education, your children’s treatment by faculty and administration may be determined by the color of their skin. This data, from 2015 (the most recent year available) show large disparities in rates of discipline between students of color and white students, suggesting that these minority students are receiving harsher disciplinary action than their white counterparts. This is disturbing, considering that there is little evidence that these students of color actually break the rules more often than white students. With little justification then, we are greatly disadvantaging these students for the rest of their lives.
Consider East High School. East High School is an overwhelming 88% white. Black students make up only 3% of the student body, Native students only 2%, Hispanic students a similar 2%, and Asian students even less than 2%. This is reflected in the graph below.
But now consider East High School’s disciplinary records. Black students, despite making up only 3% of the student population, receive 13% of the school suspensions. In fact, every minority group of students received 13% of school suspensions, excluding Asian students, while white students, who make up the overwhelming majority of the student population at East High School, received less than half.
Consider what that means. There are 1,575 students at East High School, meaning that 47 of those students (3 percent of the population) are black. There were 46 school suspensions at East High School, and 6 of them went to black students. That means that if you are a black student, you have a nearly a one in eight chance of receiving a suspension. However, if that same student were white, they’d have less than a 1 in 63 chance of receiving that suspension. For Native and Hispanic students, that’s about a one in five chance. Something seems fishy there.
The problem continues at Denfeld High School. Here, white students make up 73% of the population. Black students make up 9%, Native students 6.1%, Hispanic students 2.8%, and Asian students 2.5%.
Unlike at East High School, Denfeld offers data on their in-school suspensions. Black students receive 22% of the in-school suspensions, meaning they have over a 1 in 9 chance of receiving this punishment, while their white classmates have less than a 1 in 30 chance.
The results are even more surprising for out-of-school suspensions at Denfeld High School. Here, black students receive 26% of these punishments, while the white majority students receive just under 40%. This means a black student at Denfeld has a 1 in 3 chance of receiving this punishment, while a white student at Denfeld has less than a 1 in 15 chance.
Finally, we can consider referrals to law enforcement. At East High School, white students make up 88% of the population, but only accounted for 45.5% of the 22 referrals to law enforcement. But Native students, who only make up 2% of the population, received 18% of those referrals. Black and Hispanic students also disproportionately received these referrals, getting 9% of them. Denfeld High School was no better, where white students received just 26% of the referrals to law enforcement despite making up 73% of the population, while black students received a shocking 32% of these 34 referrals. All of this is to say that students of color are more than 10 times more likely to be forced to interact with law enforcement than their white classmates. While white students have just a 1 in 112 chance of receiving a referral to law enforcement, students of color have a 1 in 11 chance of receiving that same referral.
So, what is the reason for these shocking disparities in how punishments are dispensed in the Duluth School District? Well, it has nothing to do with the number of times these students actually break the rules. Studies show that this just isn’t the case. Black students and white students are sent to see principals at schools at the same rates, suggesting that the rates that rules are broken at are not connected to race. Instead, students of color are receiving harsher punishments for the same or similar incidents. Studies repeatedly show that black students are more likely than white students to be punished for subjective offenses, things like talking back, or loitering. All of this is to say that there is some kind of bias that exists in how our students are punished, and that is a problem.
When students are removed from classes, such as in the case of suspensions, they fall behind in class. They show lower test scores and academic achievement overall, and even show an increased likelihood of dropping out. In other words, when we suspend students, we are setting them up to do worse in life. To receive fewer opportunities for higher education. To work in worse jobs. The disparities we see in how students are punished in schools demonstrate that our school district is creating an education gap between their white students and their students of color.
Many have already discussed the impact of putting police officers in schools, encouraging a “school-to-prison pipeline” — in other words, setting up students who misbehave in school to quickly end up in prison. What is disturbing is that, in Duluth, we are disproportionately sending our students of color toward this pipeline by referring them to law enforcement at drastically higher rates than their white classmates. Public schooling is supposed to offer equal opportunity for all, but in Duluth, that is clearly not the case.
I reached out to Superintendent William Gronseth, and to the principals of Duluth East High School and Duluth Denfeld High School, Danette Seboe and Tonya Sconiers respectively. I wanted to ask these three local educators what the school district is doing to actively deal with this discrimination. At the time of publication I have not received a return call, but I will update this article with their comments if I receive them.
So, Duluth School District. I am calling on you to act. What is your plan to address the clear racial disparities in how students are punished in your schools? Why has this not been addressed already? The Duluth community is better than this, and we can do better. So if you, like me, are concerned about how the Duluth School District is punishing its students, I invite you to contact the school board, the district’s superintendent, and school principals. Their contact information is below.
Duluth Public Schools Superintendent: William Gronseth, william.gronseth@isd709.org, 218–336–8752
School Board: schoolboard@isd709.org
Duluth East High School Principal: Danette Seboe, danette.seboe@isd709.org, 218–336–8845
Duluth Denfeld High School Principal: Tonya M. Sconiers, Tonya.Sconiers@isd709.org, 218–336–8830
