A coalition of community organizations and Buffalo parents that has worked for more than a decade to reduce suspensions in Buffalo Public Schools finally has a reason to celebrate.
At Wednesday’s meeting of the Buffalo School Board, the leadership body approved new language to the district’s suspension policy that makes it more difficult to suspend prekindergarten-through-third-grade students.
“Students in grades PK-3 may only be subject to suspension if they engage in pervasive or aggressive behavior that results in serious injury or poses an immediate threat to the safety of others,” reads the revised policy.
Do cellphones belong in schools? Should students in third grade or younger be suspended? What exactly do “disrespect” and “insubordination” mean as disciplinary reasons for which a student may be suspended? These were the questions discussed during a public review of Buffalo Schools’ Code of Conduct.
Previously, all students were subject to the same terms in the district’s code of conduct, which emphasizes tiers of supports but also gives principals the freedom to suspend for reasons such as disruptive behavior or insubordination.
The new policy for the youngest students, however, requires administrators providing “supportive interventions” before they can even consider suspending, and it removes the option to suspend from the majority of infractions.
Caitlin Crowell of Partnership for the Public Good and Quinn Martha of the New York Civil Liberties Union were ecstatic with the board’s decision following Wednesday’s meeting.
“It has incredible power to change the number of suspensions,” Crowell said. “It has very strong language. It’s exciting that the board came together – so many folks on the board – to support this.”
It passed 7-1, with Paulette Woods of the Central District as the lone “no,” and Park District representative Terri Schuta excused.
According to the district’s data dashboard, Buffalo Schools last school year issued 593 short-term suspensions (less than five days) to 322 unique students in prekindergarten through third grade, as well as 37 long-term suspensions (five days or more) to 28 unique students in the same grade range.
About half of the short-term and 70% of the long-term suspensions were given for “physical contact with school personnel” or assault, according to the data. No students in prekindergarten through third grade have been suspended so far in the 2025-2026 school year, according to the dashboard.
Representatives from numerous organizations discussed where they believe Buffalo Public Schools is falling short in its punitive discipline model and urged further growth in restorative practices.
Martha explained that Buffalo students in those early grades had been suspended for actions such as throwing a pencil and leaving class without permission.
“Often we see students are suspended for developmentally appropriate behaviors,” Martha said.
The change was keyed by an ad-hoc committee led by board Vice President of Executive Affairs Cindi McEachon and Sharon Brown, the district’s chief of student support services.
Leaders in several district departments, Buffalo Schools students, the teachers and administrators unions, and leaders of the district’s Parent Congress, all contributed to the committee, according to a presentation by the co-chairs at a board work session Sept. 8.
The need for such a committee had been spurred by the Partnership for the Public Good, which included a 2025 goal for suspension reforms, as well as NYCLU and the Western New York Law Center.
“It is my hope that this is only the beginning and rather than suspend, we can foster a culture where we can address the root causes of misbehavior and build the social-emotional skills that will set our students on a path of success,” McEachon said.
“We have no evidence that restorative practices are happening, and restorative conferences are extremely rare,” said Jessics Bauer Walker president of Community Health Worker Network of Buffalo.
Changes to suspension policy have been a consistent objective of Buffalo parent leaders such as Jessica Bauer Walker and Samuel Radford III, who felt called to the mission after Jawaan Daniels, a 15-year-old Buffalo Schools student, was shot and killed in 2010 at a bus stop after he was sent home following a hallway sweep.
Student Community Health Workers, under Bauer Walker’s guidance, speak at almost every Buffalo School Board meeting, often advocating for restorative alternatives to suspensions or illustrating the harmful effects of being removed from school.
The anti-suspension advocates still have three objectives for which to fight: removing vague language in suspensions, limiting suspensions to at most 20 days, and having Buffalo Schools commit to not suspending students for violating the state’s cellphone policy. Still, Wednesday represented momentum for their cause.
“It gives us hope,” Martha said.
Ben Tsujimoto can be reached at btsujimoto@buffnews.com, at (716) 849-6927 or on Twitter at @Tsuj10.
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