Tonya Winters Buford, previously spoke about her experience raising three Black boys in our EdLanta blog. As a mother of three Black boys who came through private and public schools, she knows that importance of have strong Black male figures in schools as well as the home to help ensure Blacks meet and maintain success.
As a Family Engagement Specialist for Dekalb County, she supports parents and families. Discipline is always a topic of concern. She always leads off with why documentation beats conversation.
We must reach parents of Black boys through advocacy in order to increase the success of Black boys in schools.
Black boys have always been labeled as being bad in school. Unruly behavior is used to label bad students and too often our Black boys fit the description.
I have seen Black boys labeled in schools for almost every reason you can imagine creating long discipline records. Parents don’t know how to begin advocating for their children around discipline.
Discipline records play a major role in the number of Black boys being entered into the juvenile justice system leading to the school to prison pipeline.
The lack of support of positive interventions and counseling services in schools negatively impacts the disproportionate number of Black boys with discipline records. Instead of labeling Black boys as unruly, schools can work to implement better strategies to support them.
Jason has worked in education for over 15 years as a teacher, blogger and community advocate. He speaks and writes primarily about the need to improve education for Black boys, particularly increasing the number of Black male educators in schools. In addition to blogging here at EdLanta, Jason is also a featured writer at Education Post.