He said that while Blair reports all suspensions to the county, some schools do not. Gainous also said that Blair has stricter policies than some county schools. Gainous cited strict enforcement of bans on fighting and possessing cellular phones and beepers as areas where Blair suspends more students than other schools because it strictly adheres to the suspension policy, not because Blair has more offenses. The data also shows a significant disparity in the suspension rates between races. At Blair, 14.7 percent of African Americans and 10.6 percent of Hispanics were suspended compared to 4.2 percent of whites and 3.8 percent of Asians.
Suspensions resulting from fights make up the bulk of infractions, according to school data.
To lower the number of fights and the number of suspensions, Gainous said that school is working on conflict resolution programs. High suspension rates may contribute to poor academic performance, according to Sally Sternbach, the co-president of the Parent Student Teacher Association . She said that 61 Blair students participated in its pilot program last year. Gainous said that not one of the students in the pilot program was suspended again for the same offense. Whitman High School, with a rate of 1.4 percent, and Churchill High School, with a rate of 2.2 percent, had the lowest suspension rates of the 23 county high schools.