(Stephanie Wells) My daughter is calling me, telling me, Mom, they're locking me up.

Where are they locking you up?

In-school suspension.

What?

What is that all about?

Why are these teachers and principals allowed to do these things to these children?

(Amber Renee Dixon) The Nevada Democracy Project explores exclusionary discipline in schools, this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

Exclusionary discipline is the removal of a student from the classroom through suspension or expulsion, and research shows that students who experience it are at higher risk for dropping out of high school and for involvement in the juvenile justice system.

Studies also show it has a disproportionate impact on certain students of color, especially black students.

And it's an issue that weighed heavy on Local Mom Stephanie Wells when speaking at a Nevada Democracy Project listening session earlier this year.

-What's happening is when a child is wanting to be educated and you're, you're punishing them for not wearing a badge.

What makes that child want to come back and be educated by this person when they're being punished for the simplest thing in the world, instead of pulling that child to the side and trying to make a resolution or even calling the parent.

Half the time I wasn't even being called.

My daughter's calling me, telling me, Mom, they're locking me up.

Where are they locking you up?

In-school suspension.

What?

What is that all about?

Why are these teachers and principals allowed to do these things to these children?

-The Nevada Democracy Project is a joint project between Vegas PBS and The Nevada Independent.

And together we're holding community listening sessions like that one to find out what you think needs to be reported on.

Stephanie Wells wanted to make known her daughter's experience with exclusionary discipline in the Clark County School District.

And when we followed up with her, she told us that she took her daughter, Heaven, out of Lawrence Junior High School because she thought she was being unfairly punished.

She said Heaven was suspended in the 7th grade for not having an ID badge and said Heaven started having issues at the school in 6th grade when classmates showed up at their home to try and fight Heaven.

-These girls came to fight my daughter at our house.

Okay?

And I contacted school first thing Monday morning.

Hey, this is what's going on.

Oh, well, you need to contact the police.

So I was like, Okay, so you guys aren't going to handle anything on campus, but you're telling me to call the police if she comes back to my house.

So the following weekend, it did happen.

I was at work.

Heaven and the girl ended up fighting off campus.

So Heaven gets suspension, which I didn't understand, because you're going to suspend her now.

After the fight has happened at home, now you want to suspend her when they return to school, which makes absolutely no sense to me, because you were already notified that this was happening and you did nothing about it.

She ends up going back to school, and these things kind of die down.

Right?

Seventh grade starts, and this is where the principal says, Well, remember last year.

So not only are you-- now you're targeting her from last year.

She had a fight off campus last year, and now you're targeting her for a lanyard for 7th grade.

Heaven was suspended for this same lanyard, and I was not contacted.

I didn't get a call.

I didn't get a paper.

I didn't get an email.

She didn't even know she was suspended.

You get what I'm saying?

So when I had this conversation with the principal, he, you know, he threw it out there like, Well, did she tell you she was suspended?

And I asked him, Well, why would my child inform me of a suspension and not the school?

Why?

So what was the reason?

Oh, she didn't have her lanyard, and it was the third time.

I told him, This is a little absurd, like you're not making any kind of solution to keep the children in class.

That bothers me, because now my daughter's not getting her education, and now she's conflicted about even going to the school, because, Every time I go, Mom, it's a problem.

You know, she's crying, Mom, I don't want to go.

She's crying to me, telling me she doesn't want to go, and I mean hard down tears to the point where I'm crying.

I'm not going to send her.

-And so Heaven began attending middle school online.

That was in early 2024, a short time before suspensions like those she faced would catch the attention of the school district.

In August is when CCSD released disciplinary data for the 2023-2024 school year.

And while the district reported an 18% decrease in high school suspensions, it reported a 16% increase in middle school suspensions when compared to the previous year.

So that's where the district decided to focus its efforts.

In charge of the efforts, and joining us to talk about them, is Kevin McPartlin, Associate Superintendent at the Clark County School District.

Kevin, welcome back to Nevada Week.

(Kevin McPartlin) Thanks for having me.

-First off, can you tell us anything about the case we just heard from Stephanie Wells and her daughter?

-Certainly.

Well, I don't want to judge the parent's comments or adjudicate the school's decisions, but certainly what I'm hearing is a breakdown in a relationship and a communication with the family.

And so our work with students, whether it's academic, discipline, it really is about relationships.

And so when we have something where a student is being disciplined for a minor infraction repeatedly and it leads to removal from school, the goal would be that we are sitting down with the parent, we are communicating.

And it's two sides of it, right?

It's one from the school: Here's why we have this rule.

Here's why it's important to us.

And then also from the student and the family: Here's where our difficulty is in complying.

Is there a middle ground that can be met?

Is this something we need to have compliance with?

How can we get parents on board to help us with that?

So while in this case there's mentioned about the school not communicating, what we find a lot of times is the manner in which the school's communicating doesn't match how the parent can best receive it.

So whether it's a personal call or an email, and we have parents that prefer a text.

Really, that's what we encourage our schools through our training is, Let's meet parents the way that they best receive it to make sure we have that communication.

-In this situation, though, this parent says she received no notice that her daughter had been suspended.

That has to be shocking.

-It is.

It's not necessarily in our policies.

It's not necessarily what we see in the reports, but certainly she didn't receive it.

And so that's a breakdown where I think something like an ID badge or a minor infraction, we missed a chance and an opportunity to kind of work with parents as partners in that.

-Okay.

So you have created a New Student Code of Conduct.

When was that implemented?

The New Student Code of Conduct was implemented fall of this year for the first time.

-Okay.

Now, this student, she left early 2024, so this would not have impacted her.

But had it been in place, do you think it would have helped the situation?

-So the new code of conduct does include mandatory student ID badges and cell phone pouches for secondary students, because that is now a district-wide procedure.

Last year, it wasn't, and it was a school-based thing.

However, we certainly did include minor behavior infractions in the Progressive Discipline Plan issued and put in place for that.

So in here, while I think the school had some procedures in place, but that communication piece and working with that parent as a partner, I think, is something that if we could do it again, we would have changed some outputs with that.

-Okay.

So would three times of not bringing your ID badge under this current code, would that result in a suspension?

-Not necessarily, but at some point we need to have some compliance.

And so it wouldn't necessarily specifically do that, but the school was well within their rights to have that during last year's code of conduct.

-Last year's, but not the current?

-The current one would dictate a certain level of protocols that are different.

-Okay.

Would that be considered a minor infraction?

-It would be.

-Okay.

At that meeting that we talked about where the data was discussed, you did say, quote, We needed to clean up our communication with our parents and families when dealing with student discipline.

You also talked about the largest infraction code used for suspensions at the middle school level is an "unacceptable behavior."

Tell me about what changes you have made to that term-- or it's a code?

-It's a code.

One of the things we saw was the unacceptable school behavior, and it was one of the most used codes, as well as it was the one that had the most disproportionality, where it affected some student groups more than others.

And unacceptable school behavior was one where it's such a vague term that there's no way for us to support schools, because we don't know what actually that meant.

When you say unacceptable school behavior, it covers all manner of behavior, so we couldn't provide the specific support.

So what we did, we sat down with principals, is when you use that code, what types of behaviors are going into that bucket?

And so and then we took those behaviors, made them more specifically outlined in the code of conduct, and then removed that unacceptable school behavior as an option for secondary schools, not because the behaviors don't need to be addressed, but because we couldn't determine what exactly was occurring and what supports we could provide.

-Can you give us an example of what was all being lumped in together under unacceptable behavior that's now-- -For sure.

So just a couple examples.

So schools would use gambling.

When students were gambling on campus, they would put it under that.

But it also was for cursing in class or any minor disruptive behaviors.

It was for horseplay.

So it was kind of covering all of that, but what we would want to do to address gambling at a school versus cursing would be two very different things, and we couldn't differentiate that with that code being there.

-When we talk about disproportionality, I want to make clear what exactly that is, specifically with the group of students who are African American.

I was showing you what I printed out from your presentation.

I have found that black students make up 16% of the school district student population.

However, how much do their suspensions, their expulsions make up the total number of students in the district?

-For sure.

And that's-- the core of our work is not just reducing exclusionary practices and actions, but also making sure that they are more proportionately applied.

And so what we have, there's two student groups that stand out to me in my work is in our African American students, who make up 16% of our population, as you said, but are suspended and expelled at more than double that rate.

Students with IEPs, students with disabilities also make up a greater proportion of discipline than they make up of our student enrollment.

So when we look at-- and again, that's where unacceptable school behavior, African American students, where that code was used more for them than for other students, but it was such a vague term, we couldn't address it.

So that's what goes into some of the actions we take, is to really focus and hone in on what's occurring and what supports can we provide so while addressing behaviors, we can keep kids in school.

-To be clear, this is not just a Clark County School District issue.

This is happening across the country.

Now, you have been able to report some improvements within middle school suspensions.

What have they been?

-Suspensions are down 11% first quarter this year versus where they were last year.

Expulsions are down 17% first quarter versus first quarter last year.

-Is that at the middle school level only?

-At the middle school level, it's 16% for-- 14% for suspension.

-A decrease?

-A decrease.

So we're seeing the decrease, going the right direction, and part of it is when we looked at and targeted middle schools as this is an area of focus, because the high schools, as you mentioned, had great gains, right?

18% decrease in suspension.

So we looked at, well, the age levels are different.

What's occurring at the high school levels that's not being dropped down to the middle school levels.

So some of it was the staffing levels, right?

We know high schools are larger, they have larger budgets, they have more staffing for interventions, more counselors and social workers.

And so-- and middle schools may not have that.

Just access to resources at the middle school level, there's more provided community-wide for students at the high school age group than the middle school.

And even while it's certainly not across the board, the experience levels of our high school administrators and principals is greater than at the middle school level.

Oftentimes that's more of an entry level.

Certainly not across the board.

And so what we really try to look at is, what do we change in the code of conduct that can really make sure that we have interventions, we have restorative practices kind of outlined, that we have kind of a schedule of actions for schools to follow to reduce that.

But the other part is middle schools, you know, if there's gaps in what they have and what services they can provide, how do we fill that?

-Now back to that New Student Code of Conduct.

And prior to creating it, you met Kristal McClodden.

That was in the fall of 2023 when her daughter, Devine, was a senior at Palo Verde High School.

She told Nevada Week that Devine faced expulsion after a group of girls attacked Devine at school, and Devine defended herself.

McClodden said she warned the school numerous times that this could happen and that Devine would call her from school when she was scared.

(Kristal McClodden) I actually had rejected her first call because I was in the middle of talking on a call at work.

And when the phone came around again, I had answered it.

And I kind of whispered and told her, Hold on for a second.

And I could just hear her screaming at the top of her lungs.

And when I could finally gather, she told me that they had jumped on her.

And so when I got to the school, there were a lot of staff outside, like they were waiting on me to get there, but I hadn't received a phone call.

And so they're like, Ma'am, calm down.

Come with us.

And of course, I'm not calm.

I'm like, You guys let this happen.

Like, don't tell me to calm down.

Where's my daughter?

You guys let this happen, and I've been trying to prevent this.

And now what are y'all gonna do about it?

And I got into the office where she was.

She was being held in the office.

Paramedics were there.

Her face was all bloodied, and her hair had been like-- her nails were broken off.

She had false nails.

Her nails had been broken.

Her hair was like, she just looked like I don't know what, like a rag doll.

And I'm like, I just don't understand how this, how this is happening.

They were like, Well, just give it some time and wait.

It was Friday.

So they were like, Wait until Monday, and we would sort it out.

But I'm like, My daughter is hurt now.

What do you mean, "Wait until Monday"?

I want answers now, because this is something that I've been communicate, very communicative with you guys about, and nobody has been able to resolve this problem.

I took it upon myself.

I'm like, I'm not sending her to school until I talk to someone.

So I kept her home.

And I just had called and called and called.

And it was end of day.

I had got a phone call from the assistant principal, and he told me that Devine was being suspended pending expulsion because the incident that had occurred, it had caused a campus disruption, which caused the busses to not be able to leave on time.

It caused a big, big scene, and I'm just like, But she was attacked.

She was a victim, clearly.

They said that they-- she was involved in the fight because she fought back.

And I don't know what else she was supposed to do.

There was even video where you could see my daughter running away from these kids, trying to get away from them, and they ran her down and continued to fight her.

-That story is hard to hear, and you heard it in fall of 2023.

That's when it happened, and that's when you took on this new role after being a principal for how many years?

-17 years.

-And at the high school level, right?

-Yes.

-Did this case impact your creation of the New Student Code of Conduct at all?

-So this was a very complicated case.

Obviously, you know, you hate to see this happen to any student.

But so how did this affect the code of conduct?

The one thing, school safety is the number one priority of all principals and the number one priority of the district.

And so the campus, the major campus disruption that was described, that is within the protocol that we have.

Principals have the authority to determine when something is a major campus disruption and students should be removed.

While the New Code of Conduct further defined that and refined the definition of it, it still is an important part of leading a school and a large community like that, is to be able to determine what creates an unsafe situation.

-Would that redefining or further definition have impacted this case?

-You know, again, it's a tough one to be specific with this case.

But just to kind of speak in generalities, when we have, you know, this is a situation that-- or in these situations like this where it's bullying with threats, bullying harassment, bullying and battery.

And so the State of Nevada is very clear on protocols for antibullying and safe school protocols.

The Equity and Diversity education department, which is one of my partner departments, does a great job of providing training and support and guidance for schools so that schools know what the protocols have to occur when we're investigating this.

And I know it's frustrating, as the parent mentioned.

-Do they know, or do they now know?

-No, it's very-- that's not new, the bullying protocols and following that and having the timelines of when to do things.

But it's a difficult thing, because when we do these investigations, right, it's not always as cut and dry as, you know, the person that is the most injured is the victim.

And so they have to look at the actions that occurred, did they meet the levels of bullying?

Can we attribute it to a person?

Was there a back-and-forth of the threats and the, you know, that occurred prior?

So it's a nuance that we have to take it very individualized.

Again, don't want to, you know, evaluate the parent's comments there.

Certainly met with Miss McClodden, and I appreciate where she's coming from.

The school, I've met with them as well.

But it's just something that is nuanced, and it goes back to that relationship and communication.

It is, in this situation, an investigation had to occur.

But I think it wasn't clear to the parent on why she couldn't have answers at that time.

And that just continued to raise the the levels of anxiety in that situation.

So but certainly a complicated case.

-Okay.

I know you are not allowed to talk about specifics, but she did tell us you worked with her and she ended up not being expelled, but allowed to transfer.

-Correct.

-Okay.

I want to go back to the restorative practices that we have talked about.

Restorative justice, in particular, according to the state is, quote, ...nonpunitive intervention and support provided by the school to a pupil to improve the behavior of the pupil and remedy any harm caused by the pupil.

These practices made headlines last legislative session when Governor Joe Lombardo appeared in person to testify in support of his bill, Assembly Bill 330.

He said the bill, which ultimately passed, would address an increase in school violence that Assembly Bill 168, a 2019 restorative justice law, helped create.

(Governor Joe Lombardo) Like I said in my State of the State Address, I believe that AB 168, while well-intended, has led to this increase in dangerous situations in schools across the state.

It handcuffs teachers and administrators, leaving them powerless to address habitually misbehaving and violent students.

The data is clear.

We don't need any more victims of school violence.

-Opponents of Governor Lombardo's bill had the opposite take, though.

Advocacy groups like CODE SWITCH say the state can't blame restorative practices, because they were never correctly or fully implemented.

(Gianna) Especially within Nevada, restorative justice is using the context of, you know, disciplinary infractions, you know, addressing issues that are happening within schools, which is why, like we said before, they're not seeing the results they want to see with restorative justice.

And what it all boils down to is restorative justice is just treating your students like humans and listening to what needs to be-- listening to what they think in order to come to a comprehensive solution or coming to just somewhere where they feel like they were heard and they were understood by their, by the person that was, you know, having a problem.

Or not even just having a problem, just having someone to listen to.

So I think that's where the whole issue lies is that restorative justice is not being properly implemented.

They're trying to, like-- they're trying to make restorative justice more complicated than it needs to be.

Restorative justice is just listening and listening in order to change and listening in order to help and not harm.

And that's what comes out of what's going on right now, especially within Nevada schools is they're using restorative justice to harm, which is why they're not getting the results that they'd like.

-Well, and I mean our Governor this last legislative session said we can't have this amount of restorative justice within our schools, because there are just way too many violent incidents happening.

How do you respond to violence?

(Dr. Wall) So I do want to go back and add on to what she said, because I think it's important to put it in really, really clear terms.

Restorative justice, as Gianna said, is used as a disciplinary approach.

That's because we've co-opted it from the criminal legal system.

Restorative justice education is not solely about responding to conflict and harm.

While it can help us respond to conflict and harm in ways that hold students responsible and accountable to making things right, what restorative justice is, is about community building, about relationship building, about setting a climate and culture that is safe for everyone because it recognizes everyone's dignity.

It's about learning how to communicate with each other in humane ways.

It's about working through our differences so that we can highlight those things that make us similar.

And that is the foundation that we have to build first so that when we have conflict, harm, or, as you just asked me, something that we perceive as violent happening, we have a foundation to then solve those problems.

If we don't build the community first, the relationships first, the ways of communicating that are humane and centered in dignity first, then when I try to respond to conflict and harm, I don't have a foundation to bring kids back to.

Many kids don't feel like they're part of the community, which is why it's easier for them to hurt each other, to harm each other, or to show behaviors when they feel like they're not valued and affirmed.

-All right.

So your take on that?

-So, you know, I really can't say it any better than Dr. Wall stated it.

Like that is exactly how restorative practices are supposed to work.

It's exactly what we failed to roll out in an appropriate way prior to COVID, which led to kind of a bad name being given to restorative justice or restorative practices.

And so I guess the first thing is we do separate.

So if students need to be removed for unsafe, dangerous, violent behaviors, we do so.

And then we do a re-entry plan as appropriate.

But for minor behaviors, those are where we want to deal with, keep students in school, do more restorative practices.

But it's exactly as she mentioned.

It is creating this climate and culture of community and relationships.

It is setting behavior expectations so students know what's expected and why.

And that's really, when it was rolled out in CCSD and in many places, but we rolled it out definitely as an "after an event occurred," which was never the point of it.

And so this is kind of a reset and rolling it out to make sure schools are aware that, really, 80% of what we do, it should be proactive.

-And I do want to talk about expulsions, because you have made progress in that area.

At that August meeting, you said that discretionary expulsions decreased through the end of the year for both middle schools and high schools and that you're moving in the right direction with discretionary expulsions and with discretionary expulsions by student group.

"Discretionary" meaning?

-So by state law, if a student brings a firearm or weapon to school, it's a mandatory expulsion.

Principals don't have the choice on that.

Any other reason is where it's discretionary, where the idea is that the district or the principal has some discretion on whether to do that or not.

And so we are seeing schools working with students, working with families, keeping students connected to the school community and addressing behaviors from within.

-Kevin McPartlin, thank you so much joining Nevada Week.

-Thank you.

-And thank you for watching.

For any of the resources discussed, go to vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

And I'll see you next week on Nevada Week.