Pinellas school leaders have just returned from a trip to the White House. They were invited to take part in a national conversation on discipline in schools to find alternatives to suspensions and expulsions.
Last school year, about 17,000 students were suspended in Pinellas County. Nearly half of the students were black. Superintendent Bob Poth said the district is committed to reducing those numbers.
"We don't want students removed from school," Poth said. "We want them engaged in learning. We want them engaged in learning at a high level."
During the day-long seminar at the White House, school leaders from across the country exchanged ideas to find alternatives to school suspensions and student arrests. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch also took part in the discussion
"It was very uplifting to see the commitment from not only the U.S. Department of Education, but the Justice Department and the White House. Everyone is focused on the same thing," Poth said.
Poth said the Pinellas school district is already implementing many of the suggestions that were discussed, but school officials plan to take a look at the information they received to see if there is more the district can do.
Restorative justice is one strategy the district could look into. It encourages students to resolve school problems without suspensions or arrests.
Poth said the district has already been taking positive steps towards rethinking school discipline. Recently, he said, the district reduced school based arrests by 30 percent.