What do you think about a middle school with a 12% suspension rate?

[Anonymous]

Our MoCo middle school has a 12% suspension rate. First of all, what does that mean? And second, isn't that rather high?

[Anonymous]

I teach in a Fairfax Co. high school and that doesn't seem unreasonably high to me. Our school is about 1400 students, so that would mean 168 students per year are suspended. But suspensions can happen for many reasons, ranging from a student who has too many unexcused absences or tardies (lots of these) to a student who gets into a fight or has drugs in their locker. So, while I am not minimizing the suspension rate at that particular school, suspension covers a WIDE range of offenses. At our school, it is pretty much the go to discipline consequence when a student does anything - we don't have detention or study hall or anything like that anymore.