Denver school officials agreed Monday to establish a centralized system for responding to , to better inform students facing expulsion or suspension of their rights, and to investigate concerns about schools underreporting discipline data.
Standing in front of a crowd that included outspoken students and frustrated parents, acting Denver Public Schools superintendent Susana Cordova made those promises in response to a new report by advocacy organization Padres & Jovenes Unidos.
The group has worked for more than a decade to expose racial disparities in school discipline and end the “school-to-jail track,” pushing DPS to rewrite its discipline policy and forge an agreement with the police to restrict the role of officers in schools.
The report shows that while the number of suspensions and expulsions in DPS plummeted between the 2010-11 and 2014-15 school years, deep racial gaps persist. Students of color were 3.1 times as likely to be suspended or expelled in 2014-15 than their white peers, it says.
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