When Jayanti Demps-Howell was 9 years old, he was suspended from school in Flint, Michigan, for a cartoon superhero drawing he had made at home and brought to school. 

He had done the same thing plenty of times before — drawing artwork at home and then bringing it to school. When he was upset about receiving a bad grade, he expressed his feelings through his drawings. He drew a cartoon strip of a teacher entering a classroom giving out bad grades, and a superhero blowing her up.

He was suspended for three days for “threatening a teacher.” 

Dawn Demps, his mother who has had a career in education for much of her adult life and is currently earning her Ph.D. in education policy and evaluation at Arizona State University, said he was expressing himself in a healthy age-appropriate way, and was concerned that this “threat” would show up in the future.

“It makes it look like he came in there and he threatened the teacher,” his mother said. “Like he never spoke to the teacher.”

Jayanti Demps-Howell experience isn’t an anomaly. A 2019 study by Princeton University found that Black students are four times more likely to receive suspensions than white students.

This was the beginning of the now 15-year-old’s aversion to school. His mother remembers his attitude towards school changing after the suspension. 

Dawn Demps said her son isn’t much of a talker, and when it comes to serious stuff he expresses himself through art, so she asked her son to draw self-portraits of how he views himself and how he thinks the school views him when he was 13.

Jayanti Demps-Howell drew himself as Goku — his favorite character on Dragon Ball Z. 

“What I was saying is that I perceive myself as being awesome and being cool, to me in my own eyes,” Jayanti Demps-Howell said.

But when he drew himself from the school’s perspective, he drew himself reaching for a graduation cap with a target locked on his chest. He said it represents how people don’t want Black men, like himself, to succeed.

“And as an educator, that kind of hurts. But as a researcher, I understand,” Dawn Demps said about her son’s feelings towards school. 

That drawing led Dawn Demps to construct a project asking other kids who had been suspended to draw the same thing. She found that most kids saw themselves achieving their dreams, but thought the school viewed them as failures. She is currently writing an article about her project to discuss the results.

“These kids are very deep. They are not lost on what’s going on,” she said. 

As part of her dissertation, Dawn Demps is studying the Black Mothers Forum, a local Arizona collective of Black moms working to dismantle the school to prison pipeline. When Dawn Demps shared the artwork with the group, Debora Colbert, executive director of the Black Mothers Forum, said it showed how many kids, especially Black kids, feel predestined for prison.

“Imagine being 5 years old. And having your hands handcuffed behind you because a teacher said you were a threat,” said Colbert. 

A 5-year-old in Arizonan did get handcuffed for this reason, and the Black Mothers Forum helped the family advocate for themselves, Colbert said. When Dawn Demps’s son was suspended a second time from his Arizona high school, the forum helped the the family as well. 

Colbert said a big focus of the group is empowering parents to advocate for themselves and their children when it comes to school discipline. Currently, they are helping parents navigate the reopening of schools amid COVID-19.

In the wake of closed Arizona schools, Dawn Demps is working to create a curriculum to educate her son through experiences rather than a classroom. Part of this curriculum is connecting him with successful Black men in the community to show Jayanti Demps-Howell a variety of career paths.

The first man he spoke with was Ronald Young, who goes by Chef Ron. After their conversation, Jayanti Demps-Howell made an Instagram account — @jaycookz_04 — to showcase his cooking, and Jayanti began looking into culinary schools. His mother said this was the first time he showed interest in education after high school.

Dawn Demps said that even if schools open back up, she’s not sure if she wants him to return.

About her son being home, Dawn Demps said: “I know my son is safe. I know nobody is targeting him. I know nobody is stereotyping. I know nobody is going to call the police on him for him doing something that teenagers do.”

Source photo courtesy of Dawn Demps

The post Exploring self-image through art appeared first on Kids Imprisoned.

When Ron Brown College Preparatory High School first opened in Washington, D.C., in 2016, some community members initially pushed back. In a Washington Post article, people commented that the “young kings” sounded like a gang and accused the school of segregating D.C. students.

But this didn’t stop Ron Brown College Prep from creating a safe space for its Black male students using restorative justice principles as a foundation. Instead, “young kings” who enter through the doors of the high school are greeted by staff who aim to empower their students through a loving and supportive environment.

After desegregation, Black schools that once served as safe spaces either replaced Black teachers with white teachers or disappeared altogether. As a result, Black students have been overrepresented in the school-to-prison pipeline ever since, researchers and child advocates say.

Ron Brown College Prep hopes to dismantle this. 

The public high school specifically curated for male students of color was a product of Benjamin Williams’s experience in school and his drive to make a difference. 

Williams, the founder and former principal of the school, grew up in foster care with his brother, living in many homes and attending many different schools. While Williams was more successful academically, he said his brother was just as capable –– he just needed different support. 

He said he and his brother would have benefitted from a school like Ron Brown.

Williams was observant growing up. He said he always noticed how people who looked like him were treated: first in his middle school, high school, then college. When he began a career in education, he saw it firsthand.

Researchers from Princeton University found that in 2019, Black students were 2.5 times more likely to be referred to law enforcement, 3.5 times more likely to be arrested and 4 times more likely to be suspended than white students. 

This is when Williams said he realized, “It’s not just me and my brother, it’s more than that.” 

Charles Curtis, a psychologist and restorative justice coordinator at the school, said if school were in session right now, students would probably be talking about police brutality in their morning community circle, which starts off each day connecting them with one another.

“Community circle is really where we connect. We also get in the habit of being together, sharing ideas, doing social and emotional work,” Curtis said. 

Curtis said that Black spaces like the school are important, especially for boys in their adolescence who are growing up in a country that doesn’t accept them.

“It is fundamentally hostile to their existence, to their mental health, to their opportunities to progress,” Curtis said. “They are criminalized. This is their life.”

Built on restorative justice

The morning circle is fundamental to the restorative process at Ron Brown. This process focuses on the reason behind the student’s behavior and connects them with the community and the person they may have harmed, rather than suspending and expelling students as a default. 

Curtis said schools often look at situations warranting either restorative justice or exclusionary discipline. 

“There is no ‘which’ at Ron Brown. It is always restored,” he said. “Even in the most severe scenario where the young person did get suspended, our effort is always restorative.”

Curtis is a part of the CARE Team, which supports students and teachers in restorative practices. It’s made of counselors, psychologists, social workers, a director of empowerment and culture, and other school administrators.

The team addresses school culture, climate, restorative practices, and social and emotional learning, according to the Ron Brown website.

Teachers are also encouraged in their classrooms to address any conflicts or disruptions instead of sending kids out of the classroom. Students participate in peer circles, which use a restorative justice model to address and repair situations between classmates. 

Williams said he was intentional in bringing restorative practices into the school to help students learn accountability.

“You also have to make sure that you hold yourself in a way that you are willing to speak up for yourself. And that’s not something that most of our young men were expected to do prior to walking into the space,” Williams said.

Curtis said involving students in these practices is important because it helps them cultivate skills to not only help them navigate their experience in school, but outside of it as well.

A culture of love

Christian Johnson, who goes by CJ, was heavily involved with the school’s restorative justice practices when he was a student. He led morning community circles and sat in on restorative justice circles as part of the junior CARE team.

Johnson, who graduated with the inaugural class in June 2020, said his experience at Ron Brown shaped him into the leader he is today. He still remembers his first day walking into Ron Brown. 

“I had my jacket newly dry-cleaned, my tie was perfect, my shirt was pressed,” he said. “I was ready.”

As soon as he walked in, he and his fellow classmates were called “young king” by school staff. He said the day started with a morning community circle and greeting his brothers, a ritual that took place every day of his high school career. 

Calling students “young kings,” was a part of a constant push to empower students to take control of their own fate, Curtis said. He said this is deliberate because Black students are often exposed to narratives about what is wrong with them.

“We were intentional about every time we speak to them or of them that we were naming what was right about them,” he said. “You are special. You are important. You are a ruler. You are most of all the ruler of yourself. You decide where you are going.”

Johnson said he remembers Williams stressing the importance of taking advantage of the opportunities the school had to offer. 

The school takes students on college tours as early as ninth grade. Curtis said this exposure is important, because it shows the students that they have options and opportunities to create their own destiny.

Johnson said the moment that stuck out to him the most during his time at Ron Brown was when his stepfather passed away in June and the whole school reached out to him. He said he didn’t expect to be embraced the way he was, but that it speaks to the family culture intrinsic to the school.

“The school hours end when they end, but we don’t ever stop belonging to each other,” Curtis said.

Johnson said Curtis is like his uncle, and that he continues to ask Curtis for advice about both  small and large life decisions. Their relationship extends beyond the school walls, and Curtis continues to support Johnson as he begins the next chapter at Howard University, playing basketball and studying finance.

Johnson said he thinks Ron Brown was built on culture, and that restorative justice contributes to the positive culture he experienced. 

“The loving and the caring that the teachers have and the staff have for everybody is Ron Brown itself,” Johnson said.

Source photo courtesy of Christian Johnson

The post ‘Young Kings’: school empowers students beyond classroom appeared first on Kids Imprisoned.

In most schools, the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education is taught as a major victory for reaching equality in education. The 1954 decision desegregated schools and united Black and white students under one roof. 

What they don’t mention is what the nation lost after Brown versus Board of Education, and how it laid the groundwork for the school-to-prison pipeline.

In a 2019 study by Princeton University, researchers found that Black students were three times more likely to be suspended than white students. 

Forty-five years ago, this rate was the same. 

The first national study on school suspensions by the Children’s Defense Fund in 1975 attributed this statistic to racism among white teachers, specifically in the South. It pointed directly to the school-to-prison pipeline before the term was coined. 

It noted how vague codes of conduct leave room for teachers to assert biases, how exclusionary discipline harms students, and how this kind of discrimination can push a child into juvenile deliquency.

It asked the  federal government to set up a compliance policy to hold schools accountable for “widespread and systematic” discrimination. Although the U.S. Department of Education now has a guidebook and sometimes conducts its own investigations into school districts, no official compliance policy has ever been implemented.

“The U.S. school system was never designed for us,” said Kenneth Eban, director of policy and advocacy for the Advancing Equity Coalition in Minneapolis. “When the Black community started to build their own schools and develop their own systems, that was essentially and literally destroyed through Brown v. Board of Education.”

Before integration was law, Black schools served multiple functions in their communities. They created classroom environments designed to teach students they could be whatever they wanted to be. Black educators were advocates in their communities and networks of support for their students, said Vanessa Siddle Walker, an education historian and professor at Emory University who has studied the effects of the landmark court case. 

Some, like the Valena C. Jones Elementary School in New Orleans, taught their students to become productive American citizens. The elementary school was fashioned after a Republic with each classroom designated a state with a governor, judge, policemen and other government officials. 

Before there was a Voting Rights Act protecting their Black teachers’ right to vote, Black students were learning to be part of a government. 

After the 1954 decision, historians estimate about 38,000 Black teachers in the South lost their jobs. White parents didn’t want their children to be taught by Black people. If Black schools didn’t shut down, white teachers replaced Black teachers in them. In 1966, American Teachers’ Association, the Black teachers’ organization, merged with the National Education Association, which is still in operation. 

“It became clear that the NEA, particularly in the beginning, was less interested in equality in merging and more interested in just accomplishing a merger,” Walker said. 

The impersonalized approach resulted in a negative environment that does not encourage Black children to have aspirations and lacks advocates, Walker said. By dropping Black students into white schools, desegregation created a harmful environment without specific efforts to address Black students’ needs.

Tiffanie Harrison attended school in Round Rock Independent School District, where she now teaches in Round Rock, Texas. The district is 9% Black. 

“I think that as a student in a largely white community, I was really encouraged to be color blind, which is really harmful because it’s not a thing,” said Harrison. “If you don’t see color, you don’t see people.”

Studies after studies show Black students achieve most when they are taught by Black teachers, and they achieve least when taught by white teachers. 

In Los Angeles, where Southerners had increasingly fled Jim Crow, a school police department was created in 1948 to patrol increasingly integrated schools and protect against foreseeable property damage, according to a study by The Advancement Project, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group. 

These origins have led to an atmosphere of mistrust and overcriminalization of Black and brown youth in public schools, said Maria Fernandez, the group’s senior campaign strategist. She said this atmosphere does not address the root issues of a child’s behavior, and instead intensifies them.

For Rosemarie Allen, a social justice educator in Denver with expertise in early childhood development, this feeling is familiar. Black girls receive more discipline in school than any other student.

Allen began attending school about a decade after the Brown v. Board of Education decision. She said she was taught by all white teachers, and was suspended and disciplined often. She remembers one teacher describing her behavior as “demonic.”

After the third grade, Allen said, she remembers feeling resentful toward school. She was then pushed out of three middle schools. If she didn’t have a father who constantly supported and fought for her, she said she would have entered the school-to-prison pipeline.

As desegregation efforts progressed, scholars said different types of segregation emerged. 

Special education is one of them, said Steven Nelson, a professor in educational leadership at the University of Memphis and former education advocate at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Black students are overrepresented in special education settings for learning and behavioral disabilities, according to the National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools. 

“I have personal experience with it when I kept getting in trouble,”  Allen said. When she was in school, her teachers tried to place her in special education, but the criteria in the 1960s, when Allen was in school, was an IQ test. Her test results led to her being skipped ahead a grade. 

In the 1970s, while Black students were being bused to white schools, the beginnings of the special education legislation of today emerged. 

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, students with disabilities are entitled to a free appropriate public education. However, for Black students, advocates say it does the opposite. 

“We may have them in the same school building, so the school building level numbers look OK,” said Nelson, who also taught and advocated on behalf of students with special education needs. 

“But when you look at the special education programs,” Nelson said, “one of the things you see is that you have this disproportionality of Black students being served in those settings, especially in those self-contained settings.” 

The segregation of Black students into special education, he said, contributes to Black students in those settings becoming stagnant. 

Angela Mann, a school psychologist and assistant professor at University of North Florida, said academic performance of students in special education is often not included in the performance of the whole school. She said this can lead to stigma, substandard instruction and low expectations, making it difficult for these students to succeed. 

“It doesn’t matter what curriculum you teach if the child doesn’t feel like he or she can do it,” said Walker, the education historian and professor at Emory University.  

Even though she was smart and did well in school, Allen said her guidance counselor told her she wasn’t college material. She said she got into California State University through the Educational Opportunity Program.

As a college student, she said she still noticed the differences between how Black and white students were treated, and the disparities that existed in higher education. 

“But it never broke my resolve that I was going to make a difference,” said Allen.

She remembers reading the first study on classroom climate while she was pursuing her doctorate degree in Equity and Leadership in Education at the University of Colorado, Denver. It was from 1973.

The study specifically picked students that had the same intellectual abilities. It found that Black students were given less attention, ignored more, praised less and criticized more. It said it appeared to be a “disturbing instance of white racism.”

But there was one sentence that resonated with Allen: “It is the gifted Black who is given the least attention, is the least praised, and the most criticized.”

She said this was the first time she realized and believed that she was not the label her teachers gave her. She said she wished she could call her dad, but he had already passed away. 

“I must have cried for an hour,” Allen said. “If I could just tell Daddy, that it wasn’t me all those years. That it was [racism] and the fact that we didn’t prepare each other for each other, you know? And we still don’t, which is why I do what I do.”

Source photo courtesy of Florida Memory Photos

The post What was lost in Brown v. Board of Education appeared first on Kids Imprisoned.