Dive Brief:
- “Teaching the Teen Brain," a new program aimed at curbing the number of student suspensions, has been approved by commissioners in Indiana's Tippecanoe County.
- The program is being developed by Rebecca Humphrey, executive director of Cary Home for Children, who was stunned by the district's high number of suspensions. According to Humphrey, in the 2013-14 school year, Indiana Department of Education data indicates that 30% of Tippecanoe County's suspensions resulted from "verbal aggression, profanity or defiance."
- The program is modeled after another program called "Policing the Teen Brain," which teaches police officers how to deal with teenagers during altercations and/or arrests. Though it's currently still in the development phase, Humphrey hopes to roll out trainings for teachers in May and get the program into schools for 2015-16.
Dive Insight:
According to Humphrey, the program aims to reiterate to educators that teenage brains are wired differently from the adult brain. In other words, they are going to react differently from adults (even if some of them look like them), so it's important for educators and administrators to reassess the way they interact with teenage students and approach defiance.
If kids’ approaches and teachers’ approaches change, we might be able to change the number of kids being expelled for disrespectful behavior,” Humphreys told the Associated Press.
While there are obviously the devastating social and emotional affects of suspension — and the risk of pushing students into the school-to-prison pipeline — there are also academic benefits from lowering those numbers. According to new research in December’s issue of the American Sociological Review, students attending schools with high suspension rates have lower test scores, even if they are not the students being suspended.
Tippecanoe County is also not the first district to make strides to reverse its suspension track record. The Kent School District in Washington State is among those considering alternative discipline tactics after recognizing that suspension doesn't actually improve bad behavior.