Colorado School Discipline Report Cards

“The increasing use of police in school disciplinary issues is something that has been a problem for a long time, for decades.” -Daniel Kim, Director of Youth Organizing at Padres & Jovenes Unidos

For the past three years, the Padres & Jovenes Unidos has been tracking the disciplinary practices of Colorado public schools. The Smart School Discipline Law was passed in 2012 to begin reducing the impacts of zero tolerance practices and lessen the unnecessary involvement of police officers.

“Even though we’ve seen reductions in overall rates… black students are still three times as likely to be suspended, Native American students are still three times more likely to be suspended, Latino students 1.5 times more likely than a white student.”

Daniel Kim talks about the Third Annual Colorado Disciplinary Report Card and the underlying factors of school discipline practices and how it affects students of different ethnicities differently. School districts are now employing new tactics for disciplinary actions, which is helping, but there are still troubling results in the data.