North Carolina has a suspension problem. Love Our Children NC has a plan.
“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”
Archimedes, a mathematician and physicist from Ancient Greece, is thought to have said those words over 2,000 years ago. He had figured out the ratios that are involved in using levers efficiently. To lift a very heavy rock, he would use a long lever and place the fulcrum very close to the rock.
Love Our Children NC used this concept to change the short-term suspension policy in New Hanover County, North Carolina. The non-profit organization was co-founded by me, Peter Rawitsch, and Veronica McLaurin-Brown in March 2021. We are dedicated to ending exclusionary discipline in our state. We are working to change harmful suspension and seclusion policies and statutes. We believe all children should receive the help and support they need in school. In March 2022, the New Hanover County Board of Education voted unanimously to end out-of-school suspensions for 5, 6, and 7-year-olds for minor infractions.
Our work is not done. We are currently advocating for the end of all PreK-2nd grade suspensions. We are also looking for advocates we can assist in other School Districts so they can change their short-term suspension policies. I recently put together an online resource called “Change Your Local Board of Education’s Exclusionary Discipline Policies: North Carolina Edition.” It is fitting that the resource with the long name represents the “long enough” lever. And we want to “give” free access to advocates who want to “move” the exclusionary discipline “world” away from kicking our youngest learners out of school and towards providing them with the actual help they need.
The online resource is a work in progress. It includes an 11-step plan for organizing parents and other advocates to end exclusionary discipline, research from the past two decades about the harms of exclusionary discipline, effective alternatives to suspensions, information sheets on all 115 NC School Districts and their School Boards, and more. Information is being updated and added each month.
The resource can be found on the home page of the Love Our Children NC website. You will be granted access after you request it with your email address. We also host Zoom sessions twice a month to help advocates better understand what’s in their Board of Education’s policies and how to make them neuroscience-based and developmentally appropriate.
If you don’t live in North Carolina, you still might want to check it out because it could serve as a model or template for your state. That’s why it’s called the “North Carolina Edition.”
One of the things we learned when we started 4 ½ years ago was that almost every community member we spoke with was unaware that 4, 5, 6, and 7-year-olds were receiving suspensions for things like showing disrespect, using inappropriate language, and insubordination. That brings us back to Archimedes. There is one more variable to consider when lifting heavy rocks: How much force needs to be applied to the “lever?”
Veronica and I discovered quickly that the two of us couldn’t meet with every community member to talk about helping kids in school instead of suspending them. So, we increased our “force” by expanding our leadership team, recruiting more people to speak at the School Board meetings each month, handing out free t-shirts and buttons with our logo, writing and sharing the Love Our Children song on social media, meeting with and listening to each School Board member, being interviewed on radio stations, participating in Town Hall meetings, speaking to community service groups, placing ads on the radio, and posting our message, “Suspensions harm children.” on electronic billboards around town.
Changing exclusionary discipline policies can be a lot of work. My hope is that by putting all the information in one place, you’ll save a lot of planning and research time. So let’s do this together. Together we are stronger, and together we shall move the world.
For more information, contact Love Our Children NC at loveourchildrennc@gmail.com.
