Earlier this year, the Attorney General of Washington notified Vancouver Public Schools (VPS) of its conclusion that their, "discipline practices violate state law requirements that student discipline be imposed in a manner that does not have a disproportionate effect on the bases of race, national origin, or disability... The AGO concluded that for the disproportionately high rates of discipline impacting Black, Native American, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander and/or students with disabilities, VPS has not met its obligation to take prompt action to ensure this disproportionality is not the result of discrimination."
VPS has expressed its commitment to fairer and more effective strategies to achieve better outcomes and volunteered to resolve the above issues by a Joint Agreement. (AG Letter and Agreement can be found here)
The NAACP and LULAC learned of the finding in October and partnered with LULAC to write a statement to VPS to ensure that our impacted communities are adequately represented and involved in developing strategies and programs to correct and eradicate that discrimination.
VPS responded and has invited both organizations to join a steering committee that will meet monthly beginning in December 2019 to oversee and guide the process of developing and implementing action plans.
We will continue to update you as more information becomes available.