The Hawaii Disability Rights Center is asking the federal government to investigate why students with disabilities here are suspended from public schools far longer than their peers.

And the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii sent letters Monday to public high school principals calling on them to curb unnecessary out-of-school suspensions, which disproportionately affect Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders and students with disabilities.

“There is a huge over- reliance on suspensions by the Department of Education,” Louis Erteschik, executive director of the Disability Rights Center, said Monday at a joint news conference with the ACLU. “The statistics are pretty alarming that kids in Hawaii with disabilities are suspended at twice the length of time as kids on the mainland.”

The center filed a complaint Thursday with the Seattle regional office of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, asking for an investigation into the use of long suspensions, suggesting that it may be a violation of students’ civil rights to a “free and appropriate public education.”

“Hawaii has the nation’s highest number of student days lost per capita as a result of suspensions,” the ACLU said in its letter to principals.

The discipline code allows principals to suspend students for up to 92 days for various offenses, including vaping, fighting or use of intoxicating substances. Suspensions of more than 10 days require approval of the complex-area superintendent and may be appealed.

“People have come to us saying that their kids have been suspended for 92 days, which is more than half the school year, for smelling like cannabis,” said Rae Shih, ACLU of Hawaii legal fellow, said at the news conference. “And that shouldn’t be a reason that you are put out of school. … You should be educated in classrooms on why that behavior might not be the best behavior.”

The fraction of public school students overall who are suspended annually in Hawaii is well below the national average, at 3.5% here versus 5.3% nationally, according to the 2017 Digest of Education Statistics. But those students are kept out of school far longer, as the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported in June.

For every 100 students in a Hawaii public school, there were 41 days of suspension, compared with the national average of 23 days. That data comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection 2016, the most recent available.

Students with disabilities in Hawaii lost the most school time, at 95 days for every 100 students, while nationally the figure was 44 days. Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders had the highest number of “days lost” among ethnic groups locally, at 75 days for every 100 students, compared with 30 days nationally.

Asked to respond to the civil rights groups’ concerns, the state Department of Education said Monday that suspensions have fallen since the federal data was gathered.

“The Hawaii DOE is committed to ensuring our schools have positive climates where children can thrive,” Lindsay Chambers, director of communications, said in a written statement. “As we help our students develop crucial life skills, there will be times when they make decisions that can be detrimental to themselves and their peers, which is why the department has wraparound services to address and prevent these types of behaviors.”

“Since 2015-16, school suspensions and incidents have been on a general decline,” it said. “These trends can be attributed to the implementation of innovative practices including Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports and social-emotional learning programs.”

The two most common offenses leading to suspension are drug violations and harassment, according to Mel Decases, federal compliance lead for the Department of Education’s Data Governance section.

The ACLU contends that long suspensions can lead students to drop out and get in trouble with the law. It recommends ending “zero tolerance” policies and instead using discipline that focuses on repairing harm and helping children learn from their mistakes.

The ACLU’s open letter to principals highlighted discipline data for high schools across the state. The Nanakuli-Waianae complex had the most school days lost to suspensions, with the average suspension lasting nearly 23 days.

ACLU letter to superintende… by Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Scribd