TAMPA, Fla — A concern about differences in how kids of color are disciplined was raised at a Hillsborough County School Board workshop in January. After five months of pushing for data from the district, in May we saw why.
According to the number, between January of 2023 and January of 2024, the average number of referrals for Black and Hispanic middle school and high school students was about 2-3 times higher than that of white students.
During those same months, the out-of-school suspension numbers for Black and Hispanic students were 1.5-3 times higher than for white students. While those numbers might be a shock to some—they're not to youth advocate and teacher April Cobb.
"No because I've been doing this a long time," she said.
A few years ago she started a group called the Sunshine Education Coalition (SEC) to address the things she was seeing after 26 years in the classroom.
For her, the first fix starts with ownership at the highest levels.
"It got to go top down because if the top is not interested in it, it is what it is, we get these same results," said Cobb.
Next, Cobb called for transparency.
"Place the discipline data on each school's website just like you do the grade. Place it there!" she said.
And she added that digging deeper is key.
"These children do not wake up every day and just say 'I want to be the worst me I can be.' nobody does that! But the question becomes, 'Why are they acting out that way?'" said Cobb.
Dr. Angela Schroden is a long-time educator and member of the coalition.
For her, the quick answer is that teachers and staff need support.
"The easy answer is we need to properly fund education in the state," she said.
However, she added that the deeper answer to fixing the problem requires deep and, likely, uncomfortable conversations.
"It does take someone who's willing to do some internal work on 'Am I, do I recognize that I am treating people differently from this unconscious bias?' That I don't even know I have because whiteness is baked into the system. It just is," she said.
According to Dr. Schroden, many of the same students impacted by this trend are also struggling academically.
She argued that without change, this pattern would only compound that issue.
"If they're already starting out needing more support to catch up and then they keep getting pulled out of class or being suspended or put into another teacher's class because they're being disruptive. It is just multiplying and multiplying, " said Dr. Schroden, "And I'm not saying that this is the cause of those literacy scores. Do I think it factors in? Yes, I do."
While both Cobb and Dr. Schroden argue that accountability within the district is of the highest importance—they both add that buy-in from the greater community matters too.
"Everybody that lives in the Tampa Bay area that's paying a mortgage and some rent and there's a school within your zip code or schools you have a dog in this fight," said Cobb, "You should be fighting as hard as us because when youth get suspended they find themselves in mischief. And then that leads to them being connected to the school-to-prison pipeline."
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