Grad students sheds light on high rates of school discipline in Colorado Springs
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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — When Arlene Bjugstad assigned the final project for her graduate students, she didn’t expect one of the projects to shock her.
A professor for a class about racism in the Department of Social Work at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, Bjugstad knew that students of color face disproportionately high amounts of discipline at schools throughout the nation. What she didn’t expect was the rate at which one Colorado Springs school district, District 11, was disciplining its students.
“It was crazy,” said Abigail Walsh, a graduate student at UCCS and author of the project. Her research focused on discipline in Colorado Springs school districts. “I was just, like, stressed… this went so much bigger than I thought it would as just the final project.”
Walsh found that Colorado Springs District 11 reported the highest number of disciplinary actions against its students in all of Colorado, despite being the 13th largest school district in the state by population during the 2024-2025 school year.
“When I saw her report, I thought she had made an error,” said Bjugstad. “But it was not [an error].”
Colorado Springs District 11 reported 14,042 disciplinary actions last year, according to data from the Colorado Department of Education. The figures reflect the total disciplinary actions; students can be counted more than once if they received multiple disciplinary actions.
That same school year, Denver County 1 — the largest district in Colorado by enrollment — reported 10,938 disciplinary actions despite having roughly four times the population of District 11.
A new cell phone policy District 11 implemented in the 2024-2025 school year explains the elevated disciplinary figures, said Jessica Wise, the executive director of engagement for District 11, in an email to Rocky Mountain PBS. The policy, which requires students to put their phones in sealed pouches during class, also required District 11 schools create a corresponding discipline policy for students caught with their cell phones.
Academy 20 and District 49 do not require students to put their phones in sealed pouches.
Academy 20 and District 49 do not require students to put their phones in sealed pouches.
The data Wise shared show that after the implementation of cell phone policy, student behavior incidents for cell phone usage in District 11 high schools and middle schools increased by more than 1,700 each. These behaviors were categorized as “other” in Colorado state data, and contributed to the total disciplinary actions for that school year.
Bjugstad agreed that the new cell phone policy must have contributed in part to the rise in disciplinary action against students. But she was still concerned — the amount of students removed from their classrooms for in-school-suspension, out-of-school suspension or expulsion, was still unexpectedly high in District 11, she said.
Last school year, Academy 20 and District 49, Colorado Springs school districts of comparable size to District 11, reported less than 1,200 in-school suspensions. District 11, meanwhile, reported more than 3,500. Academy 20 and District 49 reported less than 2,000 out-of-school suspensions each that school year, while District 11 again reported more than 3,500.
District 49 reported the highest number of expulsions in Colorado Springs at 53 students.
Studies show that “exclusionary discipline” — ISS, OSS, and expulsion — do not improve student behavior or learning, and disproportionately impact students of color. During President Joe Biden’s term, the Department of Education urged schools to collect and analyze their disciplinary records for any racial disparities. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April 2025 “reinstating common sense discipline practices,” alleging “teachers and students are suffering increased levels of classroom disorder and school violence.”
“The Federal Government will no longer tolerate known risks to children’s safety and well-being in the classroom that result from the application of school discipline based on discriminatory and unlawful ‘equity’ ideology,” the order reads.
Deidre Shearer, the chief of student experiences and success for District 11, said that prior to receiving ISS and OSS, students are disciplined through class intervention plans, small group interventions and meetings with school counselors. She did not provide additional information about why District 11’s number of ISS and OSS are significantly higher than Colorado Springs school districts of similar size.
“I think that the numbers, as you kind of read them, obviously we [District 11] are significantly higher,” Shearer said.
“Any time a student has a behavior that leads them to attend, go to the principal or an administrator, and a consequence is administered, then we do document it. And that's our policy and practice. But I can't comment on how that differs or doesn't differ from how District 20 or 49 practice [discipline] really.”
A 2022 State of Colorado court ruling requires all Colorado schools to report information about student behavior, discipline, and absenteeism, among other data points, along with information about students’ gender, race/ethnicity, and learning abilities. Student discipline data for every public school district in the state is publicly available online.
“We don't teach a child to read or do math by taking them out of the math or reading classroom,” Bjugstad said. “Teaching a child how to behave, acceptable behavior, and reinforcing that is not happening when they're sitting in the office or when they're suspended at home.”
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.