School To Prison Pipeline

Welcome NYC administrators and educators, I would like to thank you all for taking time out your day to hear me speak about a prevalent issue in many schools. My little brother is 14 years old and he had been suspended 3 times in elementary and middle school. As a 14 year old black boy he already has a target on his back due to the amount of time he has been suspended. When he goes into a new school and they look at his record they will now automatically label him as the bad kid and will treat accordingly.

Did you know many students are more likely to go to jail after having a minor behavioral infraction? Black students make up only 16% of the school enrollment compared to the 51% of white students.

But 31% of black students are subject to a school related arrest and 27% are referred to law enforcement. More students of color are subjected to having a public crime record from school infractions than white students.

School-related arrest and referrals to law enforcement is the start of the snowball effect towards the school to prison pipeline. School policies are a major factor to the pipeline specifically with behavioral policies. Many schools use the Zero Tolerance policy, this is a strict enforcement of school rules. If the roles aren’t followed then the dean is forced to apply harsh punishment. There was a student by the name of Alexa Gonzalez and one day she wrote “I love my friends Abby and Faith” on her desk with erasable marker.

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The writings on her desk were counted as vandalism and as a consequence, she was handcuffed, arrested and detained to a precinct in queens. Don’t you think this is an extreme measure to take? Now this girl has a criminal record that will negatively affect her life forever. When she applies for a job and all they will see is a criminal record. If this happen to your child, niece, nephew, cousin would you want them to be judge off doing something so little as writing on a desk ? This policy directly pushes students towards prison. If you have this policy in your school I just want you to think , would I want my child to be treated so harshly? Students that are zoned to failing schools are also indirectly forced into the pipeline.

These students are forced to go to schools that do not have the correct funding or resources to prepare them for following years. Many children of color live in low-income communities This act forces schools to get the best test results from students, this doesn’t always mean extra help and assistance to pass. These schools have little resources to have extra accommodations for students who need extra help to grab the content. Who here has a child or knows a child who need extra assistance on certain work content? I know that sometimes I need extra help with an assignment or to make sure that I fully understand the work. What if your child’s school couldn’t provide these services for your child ?

What if your child has an IEP and needs a paraprofessional but the school doesn’t have the staff ? All of these disadvantages will affect this child greatly. As a student myself I know once I can’t understand something and I haven’t received the help I need I automatically give up, shutdown or leave the area and walk around. From my experience students who are disengaged from the work will stop going to school because they don’t understand the work and don’t see the value within it. Without a basic education you can not get a decent job in order to pay for basic needs. Forcing students to struggle through their lives or work illegally. With better funding and programs to help low resourced schools many more students will stay, grasp the information and be able to move forward in their life with their best foot forward.

Kids who do become involved into the juvenile justice system they are often in trouble due to minor infractions, but they are most likely put on probation, restricting them from doing activities such as missing school or being in the house after a certain time. Some of the rules of the probation are sometimes very hard to follow and after your caught and disobeying the terms of the agreement your automatically thrown in back in system over little things. Students should be allowed to be children and not be penalized for little infraction that will affect their lives after school ! If I had a child I wouldn’t want their lives to be negative affected over something so small, would you ? Thank you all for coming and listening to a very important matter!