About five years ago, administrators in Kansas City Unified School District 500 realized they had a huge problem, particularly at a few of the district s high schools.
In one of the state s largest, but poorest, districts, not only were students missing school or class time excessively, but often, it was a problem of the schools making, since teachers and administrators kept referring students to the principals offices, where some students were further sent home with suspensions.
At one building, Schlagle High School, students were sent to the office 2,400 times, or 2.3 referrals per student a rate more than three times higher than the Kansas average. More than 650 students received suspensions, and between the suspensions and office referrals, students were cumulatively losing more than 109,000 minutes of instructional time, or 228 days of school.