Georgia’s largest school district is once again facing scrutiny over equity in discipline following new data that show black students are much more likely to be punished than any other racial or ethnic group.
Gwinnett County Public Schools, which has a long history of handing out lopsided punishments, has spent money and time in recent years to rectify the situation, though its efforts have not made much of an impact.
The new data, presented last week during a discussion with GCPS Executive Director of Academic Support Eric Thigpen and Director of Student Discipline Randolph Irving, showed that Gwinnett County Public Schools sent more black students to alternative schools than metro Atlanta’s next five largest schools districts in 2018 and 2019 combined. Alternative schools are designed to educate students who have not been successful in regular public schools often because of behavior, disciplinary, and/or other safety concerns.
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GCPS sent 1,297 black students to alternative schools in 2018 and 1,393 students in 2019, according to state data. By comparison, the collective total number of students sent to alternative schools from Cobb, Clayton, DeKalb, and Fulton county schools, as well as Atlanta Public Schools, was 1,171 in 2018 and 1,277 in 2019, the Gwinnett Daily Post reported.
“This disparity makes my chest tight, frankly,” Board Member Everton Blair said.
Thigpen acknowledged the higher-than-normal number of students from Gwinnett attending alternative schools during the meeting.
“This was a very awakening moment for us to look at our data and really ask and analyze questions (about) what are we doing and how are we going to better support our students,” he said. “We’ve shared this data with our assistant principals and so this was really an awakening call for us.”
GCPS has dealt with complaints for years over how it doles out discipline at higher rates for minorities than white students.
“The goal is to have zero disproportionality,” Superintendent Calvin Watts told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution earlier this year.
While change won’t happen overnight, Watts said the district is working toward the goal, as well as reducing the number of incidents.
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During this past academic year, 5.7% of black high schoolers received out-of-school suspensions, compared to 2.2% of their white classmates. Among all high school students, 3.9% have been suspended from school, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The percentage of black students who faced discipline was higher than any other racial makeup across all grade levels.
Gwinnett is the state’s largest school district and has about 180,000 students enrolled. In 2021, the district reported that black students made up 44% of suspensions from school and 39% of in-school suspensions.
