Students of color involved in fights are threatened with expulsion at this Philly charter

The day before winter break, Jasmine Yancey-Washington got an urgent call from Franklin Towne Charter High School, where her daughter was a ninth grader: There had been a heated argument between Journee and another student, and Yancey-Washington needed to pick her up.

Yancey-Washington was surprised — her daughter was a strong student who had made friends quickly at the school, which Yancey-Washington chose for her daughter because of its stellar academic reputation, she said. When she arrived at the Bridesburg campus to pick up her child, administrators told Yancey-Washington they’d deal with the consequences after the break.

She could hardly believe her ears at that disciplinary meeting in early January: Franklin Towne officials said her daughter was facing expulsion for the argument, during which her daughter never threw a punch. They said that because of this incident — her first — the ninth grader could go through the hearing and would be expelled, or Yancey-Washington could sign papers to withdraw her daughter, saving her from having an expulsion on her record.

» READ MORE: Franklin Towne Charter High School is now challenging Pennsylvania’s charter school law

Yancey-Washington’s daughter receives special education services, and federal law requires schools to hold “manifestation hearings” for students to determine whether the infraction for which they’re being disciplined was due to their disability. Franklin Towne never held such a meeting for her daughter, Yancey-Washington said.

“Even a cop will give you a second chance, even a judge will give you a second chance,” said Yancey-Washington.

She and her daughter are Black, and Yancey-Washington believes her daughter was targeted because of her race; the school demographics do not match the city or the district from which it draws its students from a lottery — Franklin Towne is 52% white, 25% Hispanic, and 13% Black, while the district is 15% white, 27% Hispanic, and 43% Black.

“I feel like they really don’t want us at their school, which is sad, but it’s the honest truth,” Yancey-Washington said.

School officials initially said they could not respond to the claims of Yancey-Washington or other families who say they were unfairly targeted because of their race.

“Pursuant to state and federal law, FTCHS cannot discuss or comment on student disciplinary matters, regardless of whether the students in question are current or former FTCHS enrollees,” Mark Seiberling, a Franklin Towne lawyer, said in a statement.

But the school eventually posted a message on its website denying that its code of conduct is applied unfairly and based on the race of the student, and dismissing the families’ allegations of racial bias as “unsubstantiated and patently false.”

The school’s handbook does explicitly state consequences for fighting at Franklin Towne: “Students shall not engage in fighting or mutual combat. Ten-day suspension with intent to expel.”

Rebecca Preuss, a lawyer at the nonprofit Education Law Center, said Journee’s story is all too common:

Students of color at some charter schools, including Franklin Towne, are threatened with expulsion, then pressured to withdraw for infractions that would merit far less serious consequences at traditional public schools. (The Philadelphia School District allows discipline ranging from school-based punishment to disciplinary hearings for fighting, but not expulsion.) When their worried parents accept deals, the schools have no expulsions on their record, either.

“It’s always Black and brown students that we’re hearing from, and a lot of times they are students with disabilities,” Preuss said of Yancey-Washington and Journee. “It’s a big problem, particularly at Franklin Towne, but it’s not exclusive to Franklin Towne.”

Studies indicate that Black students do not misbehave more than their white peers, but are punished more harshly for similar behavior.

That Franklin Towne’s code of conduct calls for expulsion after fighting is troublesome, said Preuss — like it or not, she says, fighting is a common youth behavior.

“We disagree with schools jumping to expulsion anytime anyone gets into a fight, especially without considering individual circumstances,” Preuss said. Expulsion doesn’t address the root causes of misbehavior or teach better behavior, and “we know that it disproportionately affects Black and brown students and students with disabilities.”

But in the school’s statement on its website, Franklin Towne CEO Brianna O’Donnell stated: “ ... We wish to be perfectly clear that race is in no way a factor or consideration when investigating code of conduct violations. The only factors considered are related to determining each student’s involvement, if any, or if their actions violated the school’s code of conduct.”

O’Donnell said the school uses video surveillance and eyewitness accounts to investigate incidents and said students or families were never threatened with disciplinary action, that students were given due process, including the opportunity to present their perspectives, and “at no time were they asked or instructed to leave.” Franklin Towne’s record, O’Donnell said, demonstrates “our commitment to fairness and equity.”

Safety of the school and student body, she said, is the paramount consideration; the school will “continue to use the disciplinary tools at our disposal to ensure we provide as safe an experience as we possibly can.”

It felt as if her son hit the lottery when he got into Franklin Towne, another parent said, and he did — the school receives many more applications than it has seats. But the parent, whose name is being withheld to protect her son’s privacy, had to convince the boy to go to Franklin Towne, because he was worried about attending as a student of color.

Franklin Towne is facing the possible revocation of its charter over allegations it rigged its lottery to shut out students from certain majority Black and brown zip codes.

“He had heard a lot about them being racist before, when there was a blackface video; he wasn’t happy about going,” the parent said. “But I said, ‘It’s a charter school, it’s blue ribbon. To me, it was supposed to be safer — it’s in a gated area, and they’re saying there’s so much safety there. I really didn’t want my son to go to public school. I wanted him to get the high school experience I never got.”

Franklin Towne impressed the parent during a meeting about the boy’s special education plan, and even her teen came around to the idea when he attended a few summer events and made friends quickly.

But once school started, things started to worry both mother and son. He was given detention right away, not for behavior, but for being late to class the second day of school, before he was familiar with a new building. Other times, he was given detention because his supplies weren’t out on his desk or because he joked around, the mother said.

Eventually, the boy got detention so often that he was given a Saturday suspension. His grades were good, and he didn’t fight, but he kept getting flagged for minor infractions, and things snowballed.

The boy has ADHD, and when he’s flustered, he sometimes shuts down, his mother said. He developed anxiety.

» READ MORE: Critics call for greater accountability in aftermath of allegations that Franklin Towne fixed its lottery

As the demerits racked up, Franklin Towne put the boy in a status that meant he couldn’t participate in any extracurricular activities. Staff told his mother that he could get privileges back by the freshman dance.

By early February, he had gone eight weeks without a new demerit. But on Feb. 2, the boy’s mother got a call from him — he had been in a fight just outside the school.

“He said, ‘Mom, I’m OK, I got a ride to Grandmom’s house, I’m so sorry, I love you,’ but he was frantic. I was hysterical,” she said.

The boy had been threatened on social media the week before, his mother said, and on Feb. 2, boys came to start a fight with him and others.

Nearly all withdrew after being threatened with expulsion, the mother said.

“They were all Hispanic and Black kids, and they were all kicked out,” the mother said. “They pressured every parent to withdraw their child because there was fear that their kid was going to have expulsion on their record and no school was going to take them.”

The mother is incredulous — she said a security guard stood and watched her son get kicked, but did nothing. School staff said security did not intervene because the fight did not occur on school property, but the mother wonders how the fight is considered a school matter but not worth staff intervention.

Ultimately, the mother chose to withdraw her son, too.

“I know that my kid is not safe there,” she said. “I know that he would have a target on his back.”

The mother has enrolled her child in a cyber school for the rest of the year. He’s depressed, angry and bored, she said.

A third former Franklin Towne family described a similar progression of events. They, too, asked that their names be withheld to protect their child’s privacy.

The mother said her child had been a good student at the school until getting into a fight with another teen, who provoked a confrontation and then insisted that they engage in a physical altercation when her child flat-out refused to fight and tried to walk away.

The mother went into the disciplinary meeting believing that staff would see her child was not the aggressor. Her child, too, is a student of color and has special needs, but no determination meeting was held to consider whether the actions were the result of the disability.

The parent said Franklin Towne told her that her child would be expelled because, she remembers an official telling her, “‘We don’t have fights in this school. We have a zero-tolerance policy — our students know that they’re not allowed to fight in this school.’

“They want to protect the reputation of the school. That’s how they’re able to get good staff, quote unquote, and good students.

“They said, ‘If you withdraw, everything’s wiped away,’” she said.

Ultimately, she, too, withdrew her child and then enrolled the child in a cyber school. It affected her child’s confidence, mood, outlook on life. The parent said she’s looking for another brick-and-mortar charter school for her child to attend in the fall, but that she wants people to know about Franklin Towne.

“I hope this will give people who want to go to that school a different view,” she said. “They didn’t say, ‘Let’s work with you, let’s fix this.’ They don’t want to help them, they just want to kick them out.”