More students faced school removals of 60 days or more last year and worse, more students faced removals of 180 days or more. We continue to see persisting inequities in who is removed and who is provided the lesser interventions required by state law. Worse, we know many more children are not formally removed from their schools but forced into asynchronous virtual placements with far too little support.
Here is the low-down from our deep dive of the recently released data:
- Longer expulsions. The average length of reported expulsions last year was 142 days, up 16 from last year. Full-year (180-day) expulsions are 45% of the total, up from 35%. The shorter length of removals had been a consistent bright spot over the years, so this is really disappointing.
- Fewer short expulsions. When zero tolerance was overturned, the state started defining expulsions as 60 days. At SAC, we saw an increase in 59 day suspensions and more districts willing to try shorter removals, allowing children to get the support they needed and back in school learning. In fact in 23-24 and 24-25, around 200 students were reported as expelled but actually had removals of 59 days or less. Last year? That number dropped to only 48 students.
- Black students are 18% of enrollment but 43% of expulsions, a rate about 3.8 times that of White students (2.2x in 2021-22). Since 2021-22, White expulsions fell 35% while Black expulsions rose 16%.
- Students with disabilities represent 15.2% of students but 22.5% of expulsions, about 1.5 times their share and a rate roughly 1.6 times that of other students. Special Education tab.
- Public school academies (charters) account for a growing share of expulsions — and they tend to remove students for longer periods. Charters had 223 expulsions (21.1%), up from 98 (6.4%) in 2013-14, while traditional districts fell from 1417 to 834. Charter expulsions rose 13% last year as traditional districts fell 15%. With charters at roughly 10-11% of enrollment, that is about twice their share (assumes the enrollment share is unchanged). 61% of charter expulsions were 180+ days vs. 50% in traditional districts. Charter vs Traditional tab.
- Wayne, Macomb, Kent, Oakland and Genesee have 57% of expulsions. Among counties with 5,000+ students, Muskegon, Bay, St. Clair, Saginaw and Genesee have rates 1.7-2.1 times the state rate. Wayne’s rate is now slightly above the state rate.
- Why are kids being removed? “Other” is the largest category and while that category is declining, it remains concerning. “Other” expulsions fell from 608 (2022-23) to 427 last year, about 40% of the total (down from 46% in 2021-22).
- 20% of expulsions are related to alcohol, drug and tobacco use — even while many districts have been working hard to take a harm reduction and educational approach. Isolating students who struggle with substance use does little to address root cause and is a troubling stat here in Michigan.
And what is the data leaving out?
We know increasingly more children are given NO formal due process anymore and are instead assigned to virtual school. The state is not formally tracking this growing trend.
Being asked to educate yourself on a computer is not “success.” It’s an enormous disservice and in our observations, MANY more children are being unilaterally placed in virtual school than were EVER expelled.
We have serious work to do. Still.