The persistent effect of race and the promise of alternatives to suspension in school discipline outcomes

Demographic and student discipline data were used to examine the influence of multi-level risk and protective factors on exclusionary school discipline outcomes. Participants included all youth (n = 87,997) in grades K to 12 who were enrolled in Denver Public Schools (n = 183) in 2011-2012. The dataset included measures of risk and protective factors for exclusionary school discipline outcomes such as race, family poverty, special education status, emotional disability, participation in gifted and talented programs, homelessness, office referral reasons over the course of one school year, participation in in-school suspension, a behavior contract, or restorative approaches, and school composition. Multilevel logistic regression modeling was used to estimate students' likelihood of receiving one or more office disciplinary referrals, suspensions, expulsions, and/or law enforcement referrals. Findings indicate that student racial background and school racial composition are enduring risks across key decision points of the school discipline process. Conversely, participation in restorative interventions and in-school suspensions protects students from out-of-school suspensions. This study suggests that ongoing attention to issues of racial inequity in school discipline outcomes is warranted, and that restorative practices have potential as an inclusive strategy to improve school discipline outcomes without excluding students from the classroom.