Latino students in Connecticut schools remain twice as likely to be suspended as their white counterparts, despite a new state law that has reduced the number of students being suspended.
According to new data from the Connecticut Department of Education, large gaps remain between the treatment of different races of students at Connecticut’s schools.
Connecticut tops the list for its rate of suspending Latino students during the 2009-10 school year, according to a national report released last month by the U.S. Department of Education. Latino students made up 36 percent of suspensions in 2010-11 while accounting for 19 percent of the state’s students.
The state law went into effect during to 2011-2011 school year, and the total of out-of-school suspensions across the state dropped by 19 percent, or 9,835 incidents, according to a recent article from the CT Mirror. The state DOE reports that the number of suspended minority students has stayed consistently disproportionate over the past several years.
Students who routinely skipped class at Cromwell High School were once suspended from school for up to 10 days. Now students are sent home only if they’re dangerous or disruptive. In the 2010-11 school year, 535 students were placed on in-school suspension and 68 suspended out-of-school.
Waterbury suspends Black and Hispanic students disproportionately to their enrollment rates. While 28 percent of students in Waterbury are black, they account for 38 percent of all suspensions.
New Haven-based education advocacy group Connecticut Voices for Children has reported several detailed studies showing that suspended students are more likely to drop out of school and become juvenile delinquents.
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