Brevard Schools discipline: Overall referrals up, but trending down in some demographics
By Finch Walker
For several years, the reasons and rates tied to student discipline actions have been a topic of debate for Brevard Public Schools officials and community members alike.
Whether centered on higher rates of discipline among Black students or what was behind shifts in the number of overall referrals, discussion often ended with differing opinions among school board members.
Now, a little over six weeks before the start of the 2025-26 school year, board members agreed that overall, the district is moving in a positive direction when it comes to discipline. The information, collected by the district's Office of Student Services, was shared with board members this week.
"The numbers are definitely moving in the right direction," said Superintendent Mark Rendell during a June 24 work session.
"We do have some work to improve on, so we'll do that for sure."
The changes come after several years of working to refine the discipline process, which involved an audit of the process and efforts to revamp how referrals are handled. Ultimately, the biggest change came with the district mandating that employees must submit referrals in a shorter timeframe than in the past.
How many students were disciplined?
During the 2024-2025 school year, there were a total of 103,107 discipline referrals split among 21,917 students. It's a slight jump from the previous year, when there were 95,814 referrals among 21,426 students.
Why were students disciplined?
The top most reported student behaviors this past school year included tardy to class, out of assigned area (minor), willful disobedience, classroom disruption (minor) and electronic device misuse (minor).
Hate-related offenses increased from eight offenses in the first semester to 42 by the end of the year. These offenses included the use of racial slurs and other behaviors, though no additional specifics about what those incidents involved were provided during the presentation.
Did suspensions, alternative learning center placement increase?
In-school suspensions decreased from 9,218 days in the 2023-2024 school year to 8,390 days in the 2024-2025 school year, according to district data. On the flip side, out-of-school suspensions increased from 29,890 days in the 2023-2024 school year to 34,312 days in the 2024-2025 school year.
Placement at alternative learning centers, or off-campus locations where students can choose to continue learning through BPS for the duration of an expulsion, decreased from the previous year. In the 2023-2024 school year, there were 658 placements, while there were 603 placements in the 2024-2025 school year.
How does discipline data break down among demographics?
Brevard had a total of 73,577 students enrolled in its public schools last year, according to the state department of education. In the 2024-2025 school year, white students accounted for about 55.8% of the enrollment, making up 41,078 of the total population. The same year, there were 11,398 Black students (15.5%), 12,939 Hispanic students (17.6%), 1,741 Asian students (2.4%)165 Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander students (0.2%), 156 American Indian or Alaska Native (0.2%) and 6,100 students of two or more races (8.3%).
While white students account for more than half of all public school students in Brevard, most placements at the alternative learning centers involved Black students, with Black students making up 245 of the 603 placements. There were 211 white students placed at the ALCs, 76 multi-racial students, 65 Hispanic students, four Asian students and two American Indian/Alaska Native students.
The district also looked at the risk ratio for certain demographics, which refers to a measure used by the state to determine if a district is "at risk" based on the number of suspensions given to any demographic. The goal is for every demographic to be at a 1.0. A ratio of 2.5 puts the district on "alert status," and a ratio of 3.0 is when action must be taken to solve the situation.
Students on free or reduced lunch had the highest risk ratio of 2.5607, though that number fell from 2.7228 from the previous year. Black students had the second highest risk ratio of 2.3768 for the year, though that was a decrease from 2.4589 from the 2023-2024 school year. Non-gifted special education students placed third with a risk ratio of 1.8093, an increase from the previous year's 1.7921.
Multi-racial students and American Indian or Alaska Native students were both slightly over the threshold of 1.0 at 1.16 and 1.0785 respectively.
White, Asian, Hispanic and English language learner students all remained below the threshold of 1.0.
Finch Walker is the education reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Walker at fwalker@floridatoday.com. X: @_finchwalker. Instagram: @finchwalker_.