NEW HANOVER COUNTY — A preliminary view of last year’s discipline data in New Hanover County revealed improvements in suspensions and, thus, a federal sanction has been lifted.
READ MORE: NHCS to consider cellphone bags as child pornography cases uptick among teens
At Tuesday’s New Hanover County school board meeting, Assistant Superintendent of Student Support Services Julie Varnam presented an unofficial report on the 2023-2024 school year’s discipline statistics. At the end, she stated NHCS is no longer under a Office of Civil Rights sanction for disproportionate suspension of Black students and Black students with disabilities.
The district was going on six years of the federal sanction and as a result, 15% of annual funding had to be put toward addressing the inequity.
Last year, Varnam reported that Black students with disabilities are suspended 4.5 times more than their white peers and Black students overall are suspended six times more than their white peers. Sanctions kick in when a district exceeds three times more than another demographic.
At the time, NHCS was the only North Carolina school district, 115 total, sanctioned for its significant disproportionality.
Though Varnam said the data has yet to be officially verified, almost every category of discipline assignments have decreased since the school year prior.
In school suspensions lessened by 158 — totaling 4,719 — while out-of-school suspensions decreased by 31 (3,116 overall). These statistics reflect the number of times ISS or OSS were assigned, not the amount of students given the punishment or days served.
Reportable offenses — 16 dangerous or potentially criminal acts required to be reported to law enforcement per General Statute — are down by 14 to 162 incidents total. Student assignments to alternative schools are also down to 113, a drop of six.
Long-term suspensions (usually lasting the remainder of a school year) are the only offenses that had a documented increase, from two to four cases.
The overall decrease in serious suspensions and serious offenses comes as educators have been instructed to expand documentation of any student disciplinary measures, parent calls, conferences or placing a child in PowerSchool, an educational software accessible to parents. Varnam said more than 24,000 incidents were entered into the system, an increase from prior years.
The data is set to be verified by the state mid-fall.
Phones go over yonder
On the same topic of student behavior, the school board also heard a presentation on the use of cellphone bags from manufacturer Yondr. It’s the same product the neighboring Brunswick County school district has begun using in its pilot program to start at two schools this year.
Founded in 2014, Yondr offers lockable cellphone pouches, which have gained traction in recent years as concert venues and schools began to utilize the product. The pouches are $30 each, with potentially cheaper plans available for bulk orders. If it ordered one just for every high schooler, it would be around 8,500 pouches.
Students store their phones at the start of the day, keeping them out of sight during classes. Then the phone could be unlocked at day’s end at free-standing bases located either outside or inside buildings, such as exits or stairway entries. Employees, such as school nurses or teachers incorporating phones into their lesson plans, can also be given devices to unlock pouches.
Over the last 10 years, Yondr has moved from doing business predominantly outside Silicon Valley in California to all over the world, including countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
In a presentation to Brunswick County’s school board in June, Yondr representative Izaak Castren said 84% of the schools using the product saw a change in student engagement; 72% saw positive change in student behavior; and 68% saw positive change in academic performance.
Castren also appeared before the New Hanover County Schools board on Tuesday.
“Yondr does its best to remove expectations from the teacher of being the cellphone police and condenses them to one point, the beginning of the day, when all students put their phones in the pouch,” Castren said. “That puts a lot of weight off the school to be responsible for every cellphone, which is a bit of a liability issue at the end of the day.”
Not only could Yondr use improve academic performance, the pouches could also positively contribute to student mental health — numerous studies show a correlation between social media and anxiety, depression and eating disorders — and potentially keep some students from committing crimes. Last week, Assistant District Attorney Ashton Herring told the board she’s seen an increase in juvenile child pornography cases, some of which recently included photos taken on school grounds.
Despite the pouches’ benefits, Brunswick County parents expressed concern about their children lacking access to their phones in emergency situations.
The school board, though all in favor of restricting cellphone use in schools, did not choose to contract with Yondr, nor take action on another plan to address the issue.
“I would love to explore options, especially ones that don’t necessarily cost us , you know, money , because I know we’re very tight on money in our budget,” board member Stephanie Walker said. “But I would love to talk about, get input … and really think about this hard.”
The topic will be covered at a teacher town hall next week, hosted to gather further feedback on the NHCS climate.
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