KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Addressing discipline disparities in Knox County started from a much larger, national conversation.
"Kids in Tennessee and kids in the nation, kids of color were getting five times more than discipline than non kids of color," Knox County Education Association President Tanya Coats said.
That meant the district had to start coming up with some solutions and part of that was gathering data. Coats said the district started collecting data years ago and continues to mainly to figure out how to fix the gaps.
"When you look at the number of kids of color in Knox County Schools and then look at the out of school suspensions and in school suspensions it doubled and tripled," she said.
She is talking about a break down of population size by demographic versus the percentage of that group with discipline records. In some cases that showed students of color making up a large chunk of discipline records but a low percentage of the population. It is something she said the district recognized was a problem.
"We had to try something different," she said.
By this she means alternatives to suspension, more resources and a task force specifically designed to address these issues. Discipline disparities would also end up a cornerstone of the Knox County's strategic plan for the school system, which aimed to not only address the issue but also to increase faculty and staff of color.
School board member Evetty Satterfield is a part of that group on the front lines of analyzing disparities.
"To be honest and frank. We are still seeing disparities in our numbers and it is not unique to Knoxville," Satterfield said.
But she believes new efforts and policies by the district could be curbing some of that data. It's most recent report shows, while out-of-school suspensions are still up across almost every demographic, in-school suspensions are down.
"Knox County Schools is addressing the problem," she said.
With roughly 60,000 students across the district, Satterfield said the progress may be slow, but the important thing is that it is happening in the first place.
"We are actively and proactively doing things to make it go away," she said.