SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – Many people attended the San Diego Unified School District's Tuesday board meeting on Tuesday to speak on the district's policy on student discipline.
“I just want to bring awareness to this policy. I don’t want other parents to be blindsided like we were,” said parent Amy Mullins Boychak.
“We’re still concerned not just for our kids who are assaulted and injured, but for other kids within in the district,” added parent Elizabeth Rith.
Several of the parents who attended the meeting are outraged over the district’s 2020 restorative discipline policy.
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Its mission was to replace in-school suspensions with other types of discipline; this is to keep kids in school and cut down on suspensions and expulsions.
“You’re actually making good kids think about doing bad things because there are no consequences or repercussions. A two-day suspension? That’s nothing,” Mullins Boychak said.
After data showed Black and Latino students were being suspended at a higher rate than white students, the district introduced the policy to address racial disparities in the district.
"To me it's not about the race. It's about good kid versus bad kid,” Rith told ABC 10News.
The school board’s vice president says the district’s superintendent will be looking into the policy to make sure it’s doing what it’s designed to do so all students are safe.
She and other board members met with those concern parents about their situations.
“And we’re going to have to wrestle with real solutions. So that parents don’t feel like, ‘Well that’s great that you’re dealing restoratively, compassionately with this perpetrator. But you’re imposing the consequences on the rest of the students,’ which is something we really can’t allow to happen,” said SDUSD School Board member Cody Petterson.
Until then, parents ABC 10News spoke to say their confidence isn’t at an all-time high after speaking to and with the board members.
“Actions speak louder than words. And I need the school to react and put a step forward in order for me to feel confidence,” Rith said.
