Students call for an end to suspensions, sexual harassment at Miami-Dade schools

Teens rallied outside the Miami-Dade school district headquarters on Wednesday evening to protest excessive discipline and sexual harassment at local schools.

A group of roughly 20 students working with the nonprofit Power U Center for Social Change called on school leaders to end out-of-school suspensions and create a more welcoming environment for students.

“As students we need our voices to be heard and need to be included in decisions that affect our education,” said Janaya Russ, an 11th-grader at Miami Northwestern Senior High School and a Power U youth leader.

The teens announced the release of a new report, written in collaboration with national civil rights organization the Advancement Project, that found over-policing and sexual harassment have disproportionately impacted Miami-Dade’s African-American students.

Although only a small number of students were surveyed for the report — about 650 in a school district of nearly 350,000 — Power U said the results point to a failure to address school climate issues, particularly at predominantly African-American schools including Miami Edison and Miami Northwestern. The report’s findings were also bolstered by in-depth interviews with students and an analysis of school discipline data.

Around 40 percent of the students surveyed said they did not feel supported at school, and just 30 percent said they felt the school district effectively dealt with sexual harassment.

Testimonials from female students included in the report allege sexual harassment from school security guards and at least one sexual relationship between a teacher and a student, as well as verbal abuse from teachers. Only half of the students surveyed at Miami Northwestern and Miami Edison said they felt their school effectively protected students from sexual assault and inappropriate touching.

Another finding Power U said they found troubling: Although the Miami-Dade school district announced an end to out-of-school suspensions in 2015, saying they were harmful to students, close to 8 percent of those surveyed said they had since been suspended out of school. The report confirms a previous investigation from WLRN, the NPR Miami affiliate, which found that despite the school district’s claims, kids were still being sent home from school.

Those who were sent to the “Success Centers,” programs created as an alternative to out-of-school suspensions for children removed from class for behavior issues, said they received little academic support.

In one testimonial from 2016, a student at John F. Kennedy Middle School reported getting suspended in sixth grade for a fight that occurred after school hours and off school grounds. The student said school administrators first tried to suspend her out-of-school for 10 days, but ended up sending her to a Success Center for three days after her mother complained.

A spokesperson for the Miami-Dade school district expressed doubt about the report’s findings, saying school officials were “uncertain as to the source of the content and data.”

However, spokesperson Daisy Gonzalez-Diego said the school district has made an ongoing effort to reform school discipline and improve the Success Centers, including incorporating feedback from an advisory group made up of school administrators, counselors, teachers and parents. One recent Success Centers improvement she cited was the implementation of restorative justice programs — training designed to help students and teachers resolve conflicts without getting the police involved.

“We will continue to use feedback from all stakeholders to inform decisions,” she said.

But Trenise Bryant, a Miami-Dade parent who spoke at the Wednesday evening rally, said she wants to see the school district do more. “Student Success Centers are out-of-school suspensions by another name,” she said. “It’s another name for sending them to jail, the system that we don’t need,” Bryant said, referring to the so-called school-to-prison pipeline, a term used to describe policies that push students out of school and into the criminal justice system.

Power U called on the school district to redirect 10 percent of its current police and security budget to pay for counselors, staff training and restorative justice programs.

“Our young folks aren’t receiving the support that they need to succeed,” said James Lopez, the group’s executive director.

This story was originally published October 19, 2017 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Students call for an end to suspensions, sexual harassment at Miami-Dade schools."