Colorado student suspensions increase to highest level in a decade

Colorado schools issued almost 97,000 suspensions to students during the last academic year, the most recorded in a decade, according to new state data. 

Overall, suspensions and expulsions have rebounded statewide since children returned to their classrooms following the height of the pandemic, the Colorado Department of Education’s data shows.

“It’s always alarming when we see an uptick in suspensions and/or expulsions because that means that we are not doing the most restorative approaches that we could be doing to keep kids in our classrooms,” said Auon’tai Anderson, vice president of Denver Public School’s Board of Education.

Statewide, schools issued 96,948 in- and out-of-school suspensions during the 2022-23 academic year, a 16% increase from 2021-22, when the state reported 83,414 suspensions, according to the state data.

Suspensions for alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, disobedience and detrimental behavior all rose last year, according to the data.

The statewide suspension data, which doesn’t break out individual districts, shows how often Colorado schools used severe discipline rather than how many total students were suspended or expelled during the academic year, since a single student can be disciplined more than once.

The statewide increase in suspensions comes as school districts in metro Denver have sought to reduce how often they use harsh discipline.

“There seems to be a split among schools on how they are going to discipline children,” said Igor Raykin, an education law attorney who represents students facing expulsions from metro-area schools. “It’s basically an urban-suburban split.”

While some districts, such as DPS, are reducing suspensions and expulsions, “suburban schools have gone into another direction and they are still laying on suspensions every bit as much as they have,” Raykin said.

Overall, expulsions largely remained flat, with 751 being recorded statewide during the 2022-23 academic year. By comparison, 794 expulsions were issued in 2021-22, according to the data.

The leading reasons for schools to issue expulsions were for detrimental behavior, marijuana use, or dangerous weapons, according to the data.

The pandemic has affected students’ mental health and behavior, Raykin said.

“That behavior was worse when children returned from COVID than it was before,” he said.

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