‘Those are the critical years’: CAES researcher to look for ‘promising models’ to eliminate high in-school discipline rates of young children of color

A $200,000 grant will support an N.C. A&T faculty member as she searches for promising models to reduce the dramatically high rate of suspensions, expulsions and exclusions of young children of color in early care and education settings.

Valerie Jarvis McMillan, Ph.D., is leading an eight-person core team from A&T and other institutions that will assemble a statewide advisory committee. The two groups will request and evaluate proposals that could help childcare centers, school districts and agencies eliminate inequities in discipline practices.

McMillan is an associate professor of child development, early education and family studies in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences. The grant is from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation.

“Addressing racial disparities in preschool suspensions and expulsions is one of our top priorities as a foundation,” said Rob Thompson, the foundation’s director of early childhood. These disparities, he added, “perpetuate a lot of the racial inequities we have in this state.”

The numbers are stark: Nationally, Black preschoolers are two to three times more likely than other children to be suspended or expelled from school. In North Carolina’s public preschools, Black children are disproportionately represented among groups of students suspended not just once but two or more times.

This harsh discipline of children age 8 and younger in early care, preschools and elementary schools can have profound consequences. McMillan said young children with disciplinary records often get shunted into special education programs or services despite having no learning disabilities. If escalating punishments force students to miss a lot of school, these children can struggle with their grades, drop out of school, not go to college and end up in juvenile or adult criminal systems.

“Those are the critical years — the formative years — where children have the most growth across the developmental milestones — cognitively, linguistically, socially, emotionally, physically,” said McMillan, recipient of the UNC Board of Governors Excellence in Teaching Award in 2019. “When children spend large blocks of time either suspended, expelled or excluded” — when a child is sent home or to the principal’s office for the day — “then their opportunity for this kind of engagement is definitely reduced.”

McMillan said this unequal treatment can stem from bias, often unintentional. Educators don’t always know how children of color learn best and sometimes misinterpret speaking up and acting out as defiance or misbehavior, instead of how some children normally express themselves.

This project will seek what McMillan calls “promising models” that provide good practices for early educators, tools for family members to advocate for their children and programs that could lead to policy changes in North Carolina’s early care and education systems. McMillan hopes to have these programs identified and evaluated by this summer.

The project’s core team includes McMillan; Jennifer Mendoza Beasley, Ph.D., an assistant professor of child development, early education and family studies in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences at A&T; Kimberly Davis, director of development for CAES; Thompson from the foundation; a community-based early childhood consultant; and representatives from the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at UNC-Chapel Hill and Boston University’s Wheelock College of Education.

The advisory committee will have about 20 members from across North Carolina. This diverse group will include educators, university faculty, childcare and school leaders, parents and families, government and social services officials and many others with a stake in early care and education.

McMillan said she and her colleagues want to change the educational trajectories and transform educational experiences for Black and brown children.

“I said this before the project was even funded: I am not interested in having a project that’s not going to make a difference,” McMillan said. “I want to be intentional and purposeful in the doing, the planning and the thinking around this project so it will truly make a difference for children and families in early care and education in North Carolina.”

Valerie L. Giddings, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, said McMillan is deserving of grant funding because she has the expertise to pursue research that’s so critical to the futures of children of color.

“We all know that early education is vital in the educational development of all children,” Giddings said, “and any disruption in that process can have a negative impact on their future aspirations and opportunities.”