BUFFALO, N.Y. — Buffalo Public School students and parents are “acting out.”
At Wednesday night’s school board meeting, students performed a play as an act of protest, showing security guards searching backpacks, wanding students and handing out suspensions — sights the students say they see almost everyday
“Our kids need a lot of support,” BPS parent Jessica Eauer Walker said. “We need to help them and not be suspending them and excluding them from school.”
The protest comes in response to the NYS Education Department calling for all school districts to eliminate suspensions for K-3 students and mandatory punishments for minor behaviors while also requiring the use of positive supports instead of suspensions.
“They’re kids, they're still learning,” Eauer Walker said. “There's some really simple things that we can do to make sure that our kids stay in school and get the help that they need.”
According to BPS’ short term suspension dashboard, so far this school year roughly 5% of all student in the district have been suspended with some schools in the system seeing rates as high as 23%.
“This is a practice that disproportionately impacts children who are low income, who are black and who have disabilities,” Eauer Walker said. “It is something that is really harmful to children, and we need to stop doing it.”
But the superintendent saying those practices recommended by the state are already in place.
“We hear all of the recommendations from our New York State Education Department,” BPS superintendent Tonja Williams. “Wherever we can, we always align with whatever it is that they're recommending. As far as my schooling children in grades K, one, two, and three, that aligns directly to our strategic plan. That's exactly what we want to have happen.”