Jackson Free Press

JACKSON — Juan Cloy remembers being suspended when he was at Provine High School in the 1980s. He and several friends got in a fight with some kids from the neighborhood at school. Everyone involved got suspended.

Of course, the idea of suspension is for kids to stay home, but none of the boys did. He and his friends went outside and walked around the corner to find the boys they got into a fight with in a car.

"One of the kids pulled a gun out on us," he said. "...[T]here was no resolution. We never resolved that—ever. To this day it hasn't been resolved, and this was in high school."

Cloy, who worked as a law enforcement officer for more than 20 years at the Jackson and Canton Police Departments and the FBI, now is the Mississippi director of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a subsidiary of the Council for a Strong America. The organization signed a memorandum of understanding with Jackson Public Schools to work on discipline and the relationship between school resource officers and JPD.

Specifically, Cloy is working to help implement PBIS—positive behavioral intervention and supports—and restorative-justice programs, like justice circles, which invite everyone to share their experiences and discuss situations openly instead of being suspended, throughout JPS.

Drawing on his suspension experience in high school, Cloy says the school's discipline procedures and culture should help resolve conflicts—not just remove kids from school.

"People say they bring that stuff from the neighborhood to the school, and that's true," Cloy says. "But while they're in our care in the schools, we should have some sort of system set up to help kind of diffuse that and figure out what's going on."

A Culture Problem

As a part of his work with Fight Crime, Cloy is focused on working with JPD to help the school district suspend and expel students less.

"Statistics show that a kid who is out of school for suspension or expulsion is more likely to end up in the back of a police car," Cloy told the Jackson Free Press in an interview.

A new report from Fight Crime published this month shows that Mississippi has higher in-school and out-of-school suspension rates than the national average. Cloy focuses on Jackson Public Schools and the Biloxi School District in his work for Fight Crime.

JPS has a higher rate of out-of-school suspension than in-school suspension, indicating that administrators are using the latter less overall, opting to just send kids home instead.

The second largest district in the state did not have the worst rate of suspension by a long shot, however. Philadelphia, Miss., schools have the highest out-of-school suspension rate in the state, the Fight Crime report shows.

JPS administrators have worked to use suspension data to change the district's discipline policies and implement behavioral management systems like PBIS, which rewards students for positive behavior. The district also uses Tools for Life, which teaches younger students their "tools" for negotiating and interacting with others.

JPS Interim Superintendent Freddrick Murray says PBIS and Tools for Life are what helped drop the district's number of discipline cases so far this year. At the end of October in the 2016-2017 school year, 177 students were referred to the alternative school for discipline issues. This year, that number was 145.

Murray explained the discipline data to the new Better Together Commission, tasked with conducting a district-wide study and soliciting community input as a part of the third "takeover" option for JPS.

"Good leaders run good buildings, and so we have to make sure our principals are quality leaders and that they understand that they are responsible for the cultural climate of their building, and again, that doesn't mean suspending every child, that means being able to adopt a culture," Murray told the commission on Nov. 8.

Cloy agrees. He says he has seen a culture of suspension in his work with JPS so far. Last school year, students in JPS were suspended in some high schools for being out of class or dress code violations, while other students in different high schools receive in-school detention for similar infractions. More than 8,000 out-of-school suspensions were recorded in the 2016-2017 school year in JPS. The district implemented a new code of conduct, with new discipline procedures this school year, in part due to that data.

"I just think suspension is a culture: you go home," he told the Jackson Free Press. "And it's a culture district-wide, so culture, as they say, is one of the hardest things to change."

All About Leadership

That doesn't mean progress has not occurred in the district, however. Murray mentioned a JPS school he used to go into four years ago where discipline was an issue, but told the commission that it is very different today—and discipline is not an issue anymore. He said responsibility for the discipline goes to the school leader, the assistant superintendents and ultimately to him as the superintendent.

In the midst of a potential state takeover, Murray reorganized the district into four feeder patterns based on data, including on discipline. The district now has four area superintendents, and as a part of the reorganization, Murray removed and then hired 14 new principals for the current school year.

In Fight Crime's work inside JPS schools, Cloy says Wingfield High School in south Jackson is an example of a school that has implemented alternative and creative programming from an arts program to jiu-jitsu to chess for students that help combat disciplinary issues. Other schools, he said, are going day-to-day.

Cloy said he can tell when a behavioral system in a school is working.

"You can tell when a program is run, whatever the program is," he said. "When the bell rings, and the students walk out of the classroom, you can tell who runs the building. You can tell what program is working and if there's a program that's being used."

With autonomy, Cloy says, principals can work to adapt different behavioral interventions from PBIS to restorative-justice practices (both proven to reduce suspension rates) effectively.

"Each school has to be treated differently, and certain principals have to be put in place and given full autonomy to run their schools and use their programs," he said. "And if it doesn't work, then you get a new principal."

Email reporter Arielle Dreher at [email protected]. Read more about Jackson Public Schools at jfp.ms/jpstakeover and juvenile justice and alternative solutions at jfp.ms/preventingviolence.