School board asks staff for school‑by‑school suspension data and schedules discipline report

The Norfolk School Board asked administration to compile school‑level suspension data, broken out by short‑ and long‑term suspensions and student subgroups, and agreed that staff will produce a discipline report for board review in the first quarter. Board member Doctor Martin requested a districtwide run of short‑ and long‑term suspension counts by school and subgroup and asked that the report include school demographic breakdowns so the board can compare suspension rates with school populations. “I would like to see the data, for individual schools,” Martin said when discussing disciplinary disproportionality. Interim Superintendent Dr. James Pohl said the district can generate the reports from Synergy and estimated staff could provide them within about a week, subject to redaction needs for identifiable records. Pohl also said the division already reviews serious incidents monthly and that MTSS and PBIS work contributed to recent declines in suspensions. Board members and staff discussed the purpose and next steps. Doctor Boyle volunteered to prepare a discipline report with senior staff and executive directors that would present previous‑year data, school‑level comparisons, and recommended supports; Pohl said the report would be scheduled in the first quarter once final data are available. The board clarified it wants the dataset to show each school’s demographic composition and short/long suspension counts by subgroup, not only aggregate district totals. Members raised concerns about implementation and fairness. Some members cautioned that increased monitoring or added staff could temporarily raise incident counts because more infractions may be observed; others said additional supports—mental health counselors, deans, or tutoring—should be prioritized over security staffing. Several board members emphasized the report is intended to identify trends and align resources equitably across schools, not to single out individual students or staff. The board did not take a formal roll‑call vote; the request to produce school‑level disciplinary data and a follow‑up discipline report was taken by consensus at the workshop. Staff said they will prepare a public report and an in‑depth work session rather than only a packet of raw numbers.