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Kate Somerville

University of Colorado Boulder

Kate Somerville (she/her/hers) recently completed her PhD in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her interdisciplinary research uses public health and community psychology lenses to examine education policy issues. Specifically, Kate uses critical youth and community-engaged methods to examine issues related to youth well-being in schools. Her work on the Price of Opportunity project has included working with community partners to plan data collection activities, sharing back initial findings with community partners, and interview and focus group facilitation. She also has worked on multiple projects with the Research Hub for Youth Organizing, the Schools of Opportunity project, and the Commercialism in Education Research Unit. 

NEPC Publications

NEPC Review: Suspended Reality: The Impact of Suspension Policy on Student Safety (Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, October 2021)

Will Flanders and Ameillia Wedward
Suspended Reality: The Impact of Suspension Policy on Student Safety

A report suggests a relationship between school suspension rates and students’ perceptions of safety in Milwaukee schools. Specifically, it finds that following an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, lower suspension rates for African American students predicted higher numbers of students feeling unsafe in schools. The report asserts that “reduced suspension rates for African American students resulted in lower reports of safety.” Thus, the report erroneously communicates to readers that decreases in suspensions of African American students are causing decreased feelings of student safety, and that the Department of Education agreement harms, rather than helps, African American students. This review of the report finds numerous concerns, including unsupported claims, misleading interpretations, conflation of correlation with causation, and the use of racially criminalizing stereotypes of African American students. The report is therefore not useful to policymakers as a basis for policy decisions about school discipline.

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