There does not appear to be any national trend in terms of numbers of suspensions and expulsions over the last five years. Rather trends are localized and can be traced in some cases to specific policies (or lack thereof). Suspensions and expulsions decreased in Dade County over the last five years, and to a lesser extent in Oakland. There were no expulsions in either of these distriets in the 1974-1975 school year (see Figure 14). It would also appear that the number of suspensions has been decreasing in New Orleans according to 1973-1975 data.

A steady increase in suspensions and expulsions has occurred over the last five years in Baltimore and Los Angeles. In Detroit, while suspensions appear to be more frequent, expulsions seem to be diminishing. Other districts surveyed seem to have fluctuated from year to year (see figure 12 through 16). In every case we have shown raw data for aggregate numbers of suspensions and expulsions (see Appendices E and F). We have also included, however, numbers per 10,000 students which indicate the proportionate incidence of suspensions and expulsions in each district. It is interesting to note that these types of statistics were not available in several districts for the entire five-year span, and other districts, while able to collect the information, did not have it readily available. In addition, definitions of suspension and expulsion vary from district to district (see Appendix G).

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