Suspensions have dropped in San Francisco's public schools, but untracked removals from class are climbing, according to Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth. The San Francisco nonprofit, which works on policy for children and youth, laid out its findings on these "silent suspensions" in a report released at the end of September.
The report looks at discipline in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) that is not recorded as a suspension: students sent home early, students sent out of class to an office or a referral room, and other removals that the district's data does not capture. A California News Service story published by El Observador on Friday, October 2, 2026, reported on the findings, and the SF Standard followed on Wednesday, October 7.
What the report describes
Coleman's policy director told California News Service that total suspensions have in fact gone down over the past few years, while silent suspensions have gone up. She called it a clear trend.
One school in the report, with about 300 students, recorded 3,639 office referrals in one year, the SF Standard reported. The report puts the resulting loss of class time at roughly 1,800 hours. Coleman declined to name the school.
The report also says SFUSD has gone more than five years without publicly updating the Board of Education on its Safe and Supportive Schools policy, even though the policy calls for an update twice a year.
Gaps for Black and Latino students
Black and Latino students account for 68% of the district's suspensions while making up 39% of its enrollment, according to the report as described by California News Service. The outlet also reported that the discipline gap for Black students held for a third straight year, with Black students four times more likely than other students to be suspended or expelled in the 2023 and 2024 school years.
Coleman's policy director told the outlet that the students sent to referral rooms or sent home early without anyone keeping track are the ones whose learning suffers most.
The SF Standard added context from the California Department of Education: in the 2024-25 school year, more than 80% of the district's Black students fell short of state standards in English.
How the district responded
SFUSD officials have acknowledged that this sort of informal discipline is against the law and that they do not know how frequently it occurs, the SF Standard reported. The district also said, according to California News Service, that it is working on better data systems for keeping track of interventions and of students removed from class.
What advocates want
Coleman is calling for more counselors and more special education staff in the district. Advocates also want the district's data dashboard to show how often students are picked up early or referred out of class, with the figures split by race and by special education status.
Speaking to the SF Standard, the policy director said that solutions cannot begin without a clear picture of how deep the problem runs.
The SF Standard's story has more on the report's findings and the district's response.
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Sources: SF Standard, "SF public schools stopped suspending students. What they're doing instead is illegal" (Wednesday, October 7, 2026); El Observador / California News Service, story on the Coleman Advocates report (Friday, October 2, 2026)