Last school year in Duval County nine students were expelled, six due to firearms and another six students were suspended for firearm incidents last year. Throughout the year, separate from firearms incidents, violent school fights were shared across social media. How that’s all handled may be changing.
In some ways discipline in Duval County is getting tougher. While in school suspensions decreased by 26% from 2016 to 2018, out-of-school suspensions increased by the same amount.
DCPS says there’s a reason. The code of conduct was altered to allow out of school suspensions on a first serious offense, such as fighting, so a student may be forced to leave school more often because of bad behavior. But the new superintendent and school board also want to ensure the long term safety and wellbeing of students by focusing efforts on restorative justice.
Young students, like Andrew Robsinson 4th grader Isaiah Johnson, aren’t big fans of suspension, but know school discipline is a must, especially after recent events.
“I don’t think there should be any more school shootings or threats, I just don’t think there should be,” said Johnson.
As a young student, he has to deal with grown-up worries.
“When I go to school, I think about the school shootings and code red that I had last year, I think about that, but then I think about my friends sometimes so that way I don’t get scared.”
At 10 years old, he knows exactly what to do in the event of an active shooter.
“We went into the closet, we made sure we were quiet, we locked the doors and we had shut our windows, so nobody could look through the door.”
Leah Grappie, a 7th grader at Kirby Smith, believes some students feel the need to carry weapons to school.
“It’s kind of, like, normal now, it’s kind of like I’m numb to it because a lot of people do go around shooting and stuff like that,” she said. “If they’re being bullied, they just want the person who is bullying them to stop.”
She too is familiar with school lockdowns.
“Most of the time I do think it’s real I just pray that my life is not in danger.”
Dr. Diana Green is in her first year as Duval County’s Superintendent.
“I see it as something that makes my heart sad,” Green said. “I don’t want our children to think that, oh it just happens at school.”
To help keep the peace in school Green wants to go beyond the standard discipline and help students learn from their actions -out of school. For that she wants to see a great focus on restorative justice, which involves forms of mediation, such as conflict resolution, community service or teen court.
Dr. Green says that would be based on a point system. Different levels of offenses equal different points. Once a student reaches 6 points they would go in to a restorative justice program.
“It provides students to receive those resources at a very pivotal point, and it’s consistent, so 6 points is 6 points no matter where you are in the school district,” said Green.
She says kids must learn what pushes them to act out and how to correct that behavior, and that behavior comes in many forms.
“Social media is an interesting monster,” she said.
Although the internet may show otherwise, Green claims campus fights on campus are rare.
“Fights on high school campuses, or campuses, is not a new thing. When we were in high school they would happen for about two minutes, over, done, you didn’t see a reenactment of that.
She says on social media they’re memorialized.
And the targets have changed.
“Today is not the same as when I was a classroom teacher.”
DCPS data shows battery on school employees and non-students increased by about 38% from 2016 to 2018.
Isaiah and Leah claim their classmates act out because they don’t know how to handle their emotions
“They try to start bringing weapons to school to really harm the person, but they’re just doing it out of anger they don’t mean it,” said Leah.
“Some other kids just get so mad they just want to hit you, like you get so mad to the point where you ball your fist up,” said Isaia.
They both say teachers should find out why kids act out so they don’t repeat the behavior.
Dr. Green believes restorative justice can get to the heart of the anger Leah and Isaiah talked about and ultimately curb the repetition of bad behavior.
“I want our children to feel like, well when I’m at school at least this is the one place that I think I am safe. If anyone is going to disrupt that, I will take very strong stance and indicate that we will not accept it or tolerate it.”
Additionally, the district has now tripled the number of school counselors available.
DCPS continues to enhance technology for campus police. For example, they can pinpoint who posts a threat to social media even if it appears to be anonymous. Last school year there were 142 threats made in Duval County. There have been 214 threats made so far this school year. Last year DCPS says there was a total of 18 firearms incidents. So far this year, that number is down to 12 for the year.