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Daily Egyptian SERVING THE SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY SINCE 1916.
DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2021
Restorative Action:
How lower level schools can address racial bias in the classroom
VOL. 104, ISSUE 28
SIU Medieval Combat Club
Janiyah Gaston | @janiyah_reports
Carbondale Educational Service District (ESD) 95 punished Black children at disproportionate rates to their white peers, according to the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) data. Students that are the subject of discipline measures, especially suspensions or expulsions that remove them from classroom activities, have significantly more trouble succeeding academically, said Travis Riddle, a data scientist at the National Police Foundation. “By the definition of the discipline you’re missing time in school that I think makes it hard for students to achieve to the level that they might otherwise,” Riddle said. Riddle received a doctorate in psychology from Columbia University in New York, and is the author of Racial disparities in school-based disciplinary actions are associated with county-level rates of racial bias. He said that while there are schools that are sufficiently improving student disciplinary measures, many are “doing a poor job.” “I think it’s worth considering how that continuum exists, and what determines whether a school is on one end or the other,” Riddle said. An interactive map from Riddle’s research indicates Black students in Jackson County are at high relative risk for suspensions and very high relative risk for in-school arrests compared to their White peers. The most recent DOE data set, collected in 2017, showed that Black students accounted for 48% of enrollment in Carbondale ESD 95, but received 76.2% of in-school suspensions and 80.6% of out-of-school suspensions. White students, who accounted for 28% of the district’s enrollment, received 11.9% of in-school suspensions and 8.2% of out-of-school suspensions. The percentage of Black students in the district has increased every year since 2011, the earliest year DOE has records made publicly available. Carbondale ESD 95, which includes Thomas, Parrish, Lewis and Carbondale
Please see MEDIEVAL | 8 Emma Ruemmler draws back the bow and waits during a match at their practice. SIU Medieval Combat Club is a full contact combat sport that is medieval fantasy inspired where participants engage in different combat style games with a variety of boffers, also known as foam weapons on Monday, Oct. 18, 2021 northeast Morris field at SIU. Jared Treece | @bisalo
FIERCE! Music Theater RSO returns with an original production
William Box | @ William17455137
Middle schools, have increased enrollment every year since 2011, from 1,296 to 1,546, according to DOE data. Black students were suspended at disproportionate rates every year data was publicly available. While the disparity in discipline clearly exists between Black and White students, the gap is decreasing as increasing numbers of Black students enter the school district. Officials from Carbondale ESD 95 and the individual schools did not respond to interview requests from the Daily Egyptian. One way to continue to reduce the disparity is to create rules that are clear and unambiguous, Riddle said, which limits situations where a student’s actions or tone might be open to interpretation by a teacher or administrator. “If a teacher says [a student] was disrespectful that’s a little too vague and ambiguous,” Riddle said. “If you have those really kind of tight guidelines and
procedures then it makes it more difficult for these kinds of disparities to manifest.” Riddle said narrow, clear guidelines don’t stop bias from manifesting, but lessen the impact by reducing the number of situations in which certain kinds of discipline might be employed. Riddle said a big problem in school discipline issues is people who do not want to acknowledge racial disparities exist in schools. “If something doesn’t coincide with your worldview or your beliefs it makes it hard to acknowledge it, it makes it hard to acknowledge it, or if you see that information is threatening,” Riddle said.“If you could get people to have, sit down, like one on one conversations with another person, and develop relationships over time with those people and have them come to understandings about, you know their different backgrounds and their differing experiences,” Riddle said.
The anticipation was thick in the air of the performance hall of the Old Baptist Foundation as FIERCE! prepared to put on its first showing in two years. FIERCE! performed “Magic To Do” from Oct. 21 to Oct. 23. The group is a studentled Registered Student Organization (RSO) at Southern Illinois University (SIU) founded in 2015. The group generally produces one full-scale musical and several smaller cabaret performances each year. Performances by the RSO were put on hold in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic while the school moved to a remote learning style. The cast and crew are wearing masks for all 2021 performances and ask all in attendance to wear masks as well. “Magic To Do” is an original production written and directed by the president of FIERCE!, Nini Xiong. Xiong is in her fourth year pursuing a bachelor’s in Musical Theater. Auditions for the production took place on Sept. 10 and 11. “We had to get the script done in three days because we had auditions, and started casting people the following week,” Xiong said.
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Please see FIERCE! | 5
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