Her Expulsion Regret Creates Program that Reduces Suspension by 40%
Let’s face it. How often do we hear an educator openly admits he/she made a mistake? Seldom. So when I started reading Ms. Hanks’ regret of making a mistake, I was hooked, stunned by her brutal honesty and courage.
A news story featured her in the Washington Post in 2016. The occasion: her speech at the Teach for America summit. There were 1000 pairs of eyes from her fellow educators staring at her. Yet, she fearlessly delivered her key message: a lot of them possess an “unconscious bias” on colored students and contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline.
She told the audience, “I know that’s hard to hear. But yes, you and I, intelligent, well-intentioned warriors of equity — we contribute to the pipeline.”
Ms. Nancy Hanks is currently the Chief of Schools (elementary) in Madison, WI.
Frankly, she pointed out that educators, including herself, sometimes make selfish decisions by considering their self-benefits over the adverse consequence of their decisions toward their students.
What scared her to the awakening of contribution to the school-to-prison pipeline?
Seeing the boy again, whom she expelled, was like seeing a ghost. Not that he looked like a ghost, but that, it seems, Ms. Hanks was seeing the reflection of the demon in her in the mirror.
According to her speech, a few years back, the boy brought a BB gun to school. Ms. Hanks, the then principal, said she was angry. Because, “His bringing that BB gun wasn’t just a threat to safety but a threat to me and the reputation I was building for myself and for the school. And nobody was going to compromise that.” Thus, she expelled him.
The boy’s face reminded her of her selfish act. That in turn drove her to remind her fellow educators in the summit to recognize and face their own demon inside them.
Ms. Hanks surely knew her words could be too rough for at least some of her colleagues to swallow. But she courageously delivered her message like a knight on a horse charging forward.
Nowadays, she firmly believes that suspension and expulsion are not solutions to students’ misconducts. In 2014, she spearheaded the change of the Zero-tolerance Code of Conduct policy in the Madison Metropolitan School District in Madison, WI, to the kinder and more constructive Restorative Practice approach. In the first year of implementation, the number of suspensions was reduced by more than 40%, according to the news story.
Thus, Ms. Hanks becomes one of my heroes.
