State Rep. La Shawn K. Ford (8th) and the parents of a District 97 student who was recently suspended are saying the disciplinary measure was unfair and perhaps indicative of a deeper societal problem — the tendency among schools throughout the country to punish African American male students more severely than their counterparts.
On May 22, Destined Humphrey, a Holmes Elementary fourth-grader, was given a one-and-a-half day, out-of-school suspension after a classroom outburst. According to the disciplinary report, Humphrey allegedly booed another student while that student was answering a question asked by a substitute teacher, motioned “with his thumbs down and then shouted that the students [sic] answer was lame.”
The suspension was issued that day. The disciplinary report formally notes that Humphrey had been suspended for “defiance/disrespect” and “disruption.” It also noted that his parents “have the right to a review of the suspension by a hearing officer appointed by the Board of Education.”
Humphrey’s mother, Angel Humphrey, said prior to the suspension, her son had never been in trouble during his three years at Holmes — but that there had been some ongoing friction between him and other students at the school, including the boy whose answer Humphrey interrupted.
“I was furious,” she said. “I had never heard of an issue where a student gets suspended for an outburst. When we appealed the decision a week or so later, we brought up several instances that had occurred the previous year involving our son. Nothing had been done to resolve those issues.”
Among those issues Humphrey brought up was one that occurred when Destined was in third grade. She said he was attacked by three boys on the playground, but that no school officials had witnessed the incident. Another incident that year, she said, involved the boy at whom Destined had boo-ed.
“This boy told my son that African Americans can’t swing on the swing he was on and that he would have to move,” she said. “I assumed that, because it was February and Black History Month, maybe the class had watched a movie that had provoked this kind of response from the boy [who is white]. But nothing was done about the incident.”
On June 23, the D97 Board of Education voted unanimously to uphold Humphrey’s suspension, but reduce it to one day. By then, though, the suspension had already been served, Angel Humphrey said.
“We were hoping the board would drop this when we brought up the incident,” she said. “But I was very disturbed when we went to the board with this incident because everybody except for one person [board member Ruppa Data] is Caucasian. We brought up the racial slurs in the appeal process … [but] I told my husband, this doesn’t look good.”
“It’s pretty alarming that they would suspend a kid for saying ‘boo,'” said Ford, who knew the Humphreys before he got involved with the incident. “It’s unfair that a fourth-grader is suspended from school for this. That suspension is permanently on his record. The school should, instead, be working with the parents to resolve this issue. You have two parents, a husband and a wife, who pay taxes. They’re both ready and available to meet on the drop of a dime.
“Studies show African Americans are suspended [nationally] at a greater rate than any other race. That’s why we have to do something.”
D97 has a long history of disproportionately suspending African American students — a reality that then-Superintendent Al Roberts acknowledged as “an issue” and a work-in-progress to the Chicago Tribune in 2013.
A 2012 student disciplinary report, for instance, showed that 87 students were suspended 106 times during the first half of that year — mostly “for fighting and showing aggression but also for showing defiance or disrespect and theft or forgery,” the Tribune noted.
Although black students were slightly under 30 percent of the student population that year, they made more than 72 percent of suspended students — which means “63 of the 87 students given suspension the first half of the year were black.”
Ford noted that “for the last six years” he’s been working on introducing legislation to reduce that disparity. In 2014, he introduced a bill that would require the State Board of Education to “establish a standard student expulsion policy that applies to each school district” in Illinois. And on May 29, roughly a week after Humphrey was suspended, Ford filed legislation that would amend the school code, providing that “out-of-school suspensions of students may take place only after a school counselor or school social worker, if any, at the school has approved the out-of-school suspension.”
According to a statement issued by D97 spokesman Chris Jasculca, board policy prohibits the district from “providing information about student discipline issues,” but that the “perspective Representative Ford shared on this incident does not reflect the entirety of the situation.
“With that said, we greatly respect and admire Representative Ford and his commitment to the children of this community. We would also welcome the opportunity to work with him, our peer districts and the Illinois State Board of Education on the creation of a uniform policy that will enable schools throughout the state to administer student discipline via a process that is consistent, equitable and supports the development of the whole child.”
CONTACT: michael@oakpark.com
This post has been updated to include the D97 statement in full.