His mother, when her son is stopped from school and sent home, feels that the school ignores his disability. Shania says ADHD makes a levent impulsive – and contributes to many of the incidents that stopped it.
“Why is it difficult what does adhd look like?” she asks.
In records, school employees said they did not believe that all Levent abuses were linked to his disability.
All over the country, disabled students are suspended At far higher prices than their peers with non -transparent products.
The Levent School is part of a charter network that stands out in Indiana: NPR Analysis of State Data from 2024-25. It has found that the system, Paramount Schools of Excellence, has halted students with disabilities about three times more often than the average for the state.
Paramount supporters, including many parents, praised the net for calm classrooms and strong academic results, especially among students from low -income families and color students.
But several current and former Paramount parents have told NPR that some students – especially those with disabilities – are struggling to follow the rules that encourage these quiet classrooms.
“It’s or that you respond to this shape or you don’t,” Shania says. “And if you don’t, then we will stop, stop, stop.”
“Calm” corridors and very high suspension rates
Paramount Schools of Excellence is a growing charter network in Indiana. As a K-8 charter system, its campuses are privately managed but publicly funded and free of charge.
When Paramount CEO Tommy Reddix describes his schools, one of the first words he uses is calm. The halls are quiet. In classrooms, students are focused on school work. “We are a very calm, collected school environment, not a kind of really jazz that your cheerleaded environment,” he says.
Federal data show Indiana schools rely on exceptional discipline as stopping out of school more than schools in most other statesS And Paramount’s suspension percentages surpass the state of Indiana’s state among students with and without disabilities.
For every 100 students in the general education in the Paramount system, there were about 45 suspensions, according to NPR analysis of state data from the 2024-25 school year. The average across the country was 10.
There were about 73 suspensions for every 100 children receiving special educational services. The average across the country was 22.
These data reflect the total number of braking, not the number of students suspended.
Reddicks attributes partly high levels of suspension to the network of its structured approach, which, in his view, protects the learning environment and ultimately benefits from students, including those with disabilities.
“You know, many of our special educational incidents usually include the safety of others or the safety of the students in question,” explains Reddix.
Reddicks says, and state data confirm that Paramount Schools reduces stopping among students with disabilities during the 2024-25 school year.
He says the decline reflects both the maturation of the campuses that have opened in recent years and the enrolled students for the first time, as well as the focus of the network on the training staff to reduce braking.
When suspensions happen, Reddicks says they don’t believe they keep students.
“We know that in our more structured system students with suspensions are still performing very well and usually superior to the average states,” he says.
Reddicks shared data from two Paramount Schools. He showed that students who were suspended do exceed the average values of standardized tests, but only in some degrees. It did not provide data on other campuses on the network, including Paramount Englewood.
Why some families of disabled students are attracted to Paramount
For some parents, the policies of discipline that help to encourage the quiet classrooms of Paramount are a point of sale. This is one of the reasons for Nicole to send five children to a first -class school, he continued to drive his family there, even after moving around the city.
“I like that they are strict,” says Nicole. “You enter Paramount, their children sit on the desk. Their children do what they need to do.”
Even when her own children were stopped, Nicole saw some benefit.
Her 12-year-old son Leon has autism and other disabilities. Last year, Leon’s behavior stopped after his grandfather died, says Nicole. He began to gather and throw objects into a class. Nicole says that not every stop he has received was necessary, but he must be stopped when he presses or fights with other students.
“He has to be responsible,” she says. “Because I don’t want to say,” Oh, let’s (Leon) deal with that because he has autism. “
In general, Nicole says that Paramount teachers have worked hard to meet Leon’s needs. She trusts Paramount in part because she believes that her most jealous childhood experience there creates them to succeed in high school.
The cost of the missing school
Some experts say that when schools stop students with disabilities, it is a little more than an auxiliary group that gives teachers from unscrupulous behavior and a chance to think about how to react.
“I would say that the stopping is not a lot,” says Federico Wytoller, a professor of special education at the University of Illinois Chicago. Waitoller says suspensions do not help students with disabilities learn and grow.
“You don’t teach anything, do you?” says Waitoller, a former special teacher. “You say,” Don’t do that. ” But you do not tell the student what to do, how to do it – and give them the support to do so. “
Levent’s mother, Shania, says she saw some of his difficult behavior at home and that she would like to learn to control his impulses – to stop a horse game and argue when the adults ask him to do something.
But Shania says that suspensions do not do a little to teach their son how to behave. And the missed days of school are added. The records show that the school of Levent stopped him at least 10 days last school year. Then, after Levent left the campus a few weeks before the end of the year, he had to spend the bigger part of the last days of school at home, where he received about an hour of distance learning a day, according to school records.
Everything that missed school has taken a fee, says Shania.
“I don’t want him to lag more back,” she says. “Because again this is a child behind.”
