FOCUS (Families Organized for Consistent Unified Strategies) held a meeting at the CAIR-Tampa Office on this past Wednesday, July 21st. The groups intention was to reform the current “Zero Tolerance Policy” of Hillsborough County, implementing the POS (civil citation) and the “Positive Behavior Approach” as a alternative.

The Hillsborough County Public hearing revealed that the school district is making excessive arrests, making referrals to juvenile courts, and issuing out-of-school suspensions to students who engage in even the most minor acts of misconduct. African American students received 45% of the out-of-school suspensions overall, and 59% of them were issued at the elementary school level. The disproportional numbers are what many say is a clear civil rights violation.  Sending children to jail at such a young age creates a vortex called the "school to prison pipeline."  Affects are felt in every community, from lower graduation rates, higher crime rates, and a whole segment of society that is being systematically incarcerated.

"American Muslims identify with this clear violation of civil rights, in which a select group is being singled out. School officials need to immediately address community concerns for a better resolution, rather than augmenting the problem further through ineffective punitive measures," said CAIR-Tampa's Community Outreach Coordinator, Chaikirah Johnson. "Real change will come when the community embraces this issue together."