District looks into suspension stats

GLENDALE — School district officials are doing a case-by-case analysis of every special-education student suspended for more than 10 days or expelled during the 2006-07 school year after the state education department found that the district suspended or expelled a disproportionate number of Latino special-education students during the 2005-06 school year.

The state department of education notified Glendale Unified officials on Nov. 5 that the self-review of last year’s suspensions and expulsions of special-education students was necessary to make sure the district is complying with state and federal law, said Lou Stewart, the assistant superintendent for special education.

During the 2005-06 school year, 52.2% of the district’s special-education students who were suspended for more than 10 days or expelled were Latino, Stewart told the board of education Tuesday night. That year, 35.7% of the special-education students in the district were Latino.

The difference between those two percentages shows a disparity between the ethnic makeup of the district’s special-education population and the ethnic makeup of the district’s special-education students who are suspended and expelled, Stewart said.

“What we’ve been charged to do is further analysis of this situation,” Stewart said.

Stewart said her staff had already begun reviewing last year’s suspensions and expulsions among special-education students. The goal of the analysis is to determine whether the school district has provided the appropriate support to the students before they were suspended or expelled, and to see whether the school district needs to change its disciplinary policies regarding special-education students.

“Have we been providing the proper amount of support to those students and their families? We need to evaluate that very, very carefully,” Stewart said.

Stewart told the board that the number of students under review is relatively small, but that making sure the disciplinary actions were taken appropriately was nonetheless important.

During the 2005-06 school year, 23 special-education students were suspended for more than 10 days or expelled. Out of those 23 students, 12 were Latino and 11 were white.

“We really are talking about very, very small numbers,” Supt. Michael Escalante said. “It’s kind of interesting how you end up under fire.”