DOJ, Wichita schools reach settlement in race, disability discrimination investigation
Wichita Public Schools and the U.S. Department of Justice have reached a settlement after an investigation into Kansas’ largest school district uncovered race and disability discrimination in how discipline is dealt out.
“The department’s investigation revealed, among other things, that the district’s Black students were disciplined more frequently and more severely than white students who engaged in similar conduct and had similar backgrounds and disciplinary histories,” a Tuesday DOJ release states.
“This pattern was most evident when it came to subjective offenses such as insubordination, and was especially stark when it came to discipline of Black girls, whose behavior was repeatedly characterized using stereotypical terms like ‘attitude’ or ‘drama.’”
The investigation, which was opened in spring of 2022 and evaluated disciplinary records from the beginning of the 2020-21 school year through the end of the 2022-23 school year, also concluded that USD 259 “inappropriately and repeatedly secluded and restrained students with disabilities and relegated those with the greatest behavioral needs to inferior facilities with inadequate services and support.”
When the department visited USD 259’s special schools for students with behavioral disabilities, investigators reported finding “inferior facilities devoid of furniture, educational equipment and the kinds of decor commonly found in schools, and staff who could not meet the needs of students.”
“Black students inside our nation’s public schools should not have to face discipline or a referral to law enforcement because of their race. And students with disabilities should not have to experience the trauma of seclusion or improper restraint,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke is quoted as saying in the release.
“Schools in our communities should not be a place of fear or mistrust. This agreement upholds our core principles of ending the school to prison pipeline and protecting our most vulnerable students against all forms of discrimination and segregation.”
School district responds
At a Tuesday press conference, Superintendent Kelly Bielefeld and other district officials addressed the the investigation’s findings, stressing repeatedly that the DOJ has reached similar settlements with large school districts around the country in recent years.
Many of those recent settlements, including in Spokane, Anchorage, and Cedar Rapids, have addressed discriminatory seclusion and restraint practices without accompanying findings of racial discrimination in disciplinary practices.
“As we begin, I want to answer a question that I had early on in this process, and that was, ‘What prompted this investigation?’” said Bielefeld, who took over a year after the investigation was opened. “The short answer is that we don’t know.
“We don’t know what may have prompted the initial inquiry. But I can tell you that we can and we must create a more equitable school district, and we will do so by changing some of our practices and procedures going forward.”
He said the district is committed to fulfilling the requirements laid out in the settlement agreement, which include eliminating seclusion, developing a new student code of conduct and implementing a district-level system that monitors disciplinary tactics and ensures their equity.
The district must also create a new office to monitor restraint practices and ensure compliance with the agreement.
“We’ll be adding some parent debriefs, principal debriefs, student debriefs, and some oversight pieces where our office will go in and work directly with those people to make sure that we’ve got de-escalation techniques involved,” said Melissa Zieammermann, who has been named director of the new Office of Behavior Management, Support and Oversight. “We’ve got best practices that are going to be trained over the course of this year.”
Vince Evans, assistant superintendent of student support services, pushed back against the idea that the district’s special schools are inhospitable to learning.
“The DOJ is certainly entitled to their opinion on that. I will tell you that everyone that works within any of our special day schools to serve students with emotional disabilities is qualified, is licensed,” Evans said. “Those schools are furnished, they do have furniture, et cetera. And Superintendent Bielefeld is a champion for continuing to improve those facilities moving forward.”
In August, the district plans to start gathering feedback from students, staff, parents and community members, and use that to finalize a draft of the new student code of conduct. Ultimately, that document must be delivered to the DOJ by Oct. 15, and the agency will determine whether to accept it as written or require revisions.
Students with disabilities restrained, secluded
During the three-year period covered by the investigation, more than 98% of the 3,000 students restrained and secluded by district employees had disabilities, the DOJ found. At least 44 students experienced 20 or more episodes of restraint or seclusion, including one child who was secluded 99 times for a total of over 15 hours.
Zieammermann said seclusion has not been used as a disciplinary measure, despite the framing of the DOJ findings.
We use it as a last resort when students are unsafe,” she said.
“The Department of Justice has said, not only to our district but to districts all over the district, that they believe that’s a practice that is antiquated, that should not be used anymore,” Bielefeld said. “So as part of the agreement, we’re agreeing to that.
“If students have been secluded or have been in a situation where that was required, we always hope to do best by the family and figure out a strategy to make sure that kid feels safe in the future.”
School-to-prison pipeline
Discriminatory treatment of Black students was identified in the administration of discipline at multiple schools, with Black girls in particular “facing especially high levels of exclusion for perceived insubordination and for dress code violations at certain middle schools.”
The investigation also found evidence of racial discrimination in referrals to law enforcement and a pattern of security officers responding to routine discipline matters and escalating those incidents, “resulting in the unnecessary referral of Black students to law enforcement for routine or minor misbehavior.”
“There’s a lot of families, African American families in our district that probably have experienced it, right? Or have felt that this is real, that there are differences between how discipline has been administered,” Bielefeld said. “Whether that is perception or reality, I think the point for me is that we can and will do better moving forward.”
Asked if Wichita Public Schools has contributed to the school-to-prison pipeline invoked by the assistant attorney general, Equity, Diversity and Accountability Director William Polite said that’s an oversimplification.
“Directly? No. Do kids from our school district end up in jails and prisons? Yes,” Polite said.
“Things do happen in schools that can contribute. Unfair disciplinary practices can contribute. But we also have to look at the community to prison pipeline as well, and many of the issues that many of our kids come through the door with really come from the community and come alive at the school.”
Settlement terms
Under the terms of the agreement, which can be read in its entirety on the district’s website at https://www.usd259.org/doj, USD 259 agrees to do the following:
Develop a district-wide code of conduct, standardize dress code policies and create a behavior intervention protocol to ensure the nondiscriminatory administration of discipline and prohibit unnecessary exclusion of students from the school environment;
Create a system of district-level monitoring of schools’ administration of discipline to ensure nondiscrimination;
Ensure that school security and law enforcement only become involved in student misbehavior in appropriate circumstances and thereby avoid criminalizing routine school discipline matters;
Eliminate the use of seclusion;
Restrain students only when their behavior poses an imminent danger of serious physical harm to the student or another person, properly document all restraints and provide students who are restrained or secluded with required interventions;
Ensure that only professionals with the requisite expertise and training run and staff specialized schools for students with disabilities;
Provide counseling and compensatory education to students who have been repeatedly secluded; and
Create an office to monitor the district’s restraint practices (and seclusion until it is eliminated) to ensure compliance with the agreement and assist district staff in providing required interventions and supports.
Special school board meeting to approve settlement
In a special meeting that lasted less than a minute, the Wichita school board voted Monday to approve a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice.
In a Monday-morning message obtained by The Eagle, Superintendent Kelly Bielefeld asked board members and district staff who are familiar with the agreement to “refrain from public comment during the meeting and following the meeting until tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday) when the DOJ releases their statement.”
