Peter Rawitsch worked with Veronica McLaurin-Brown, a retired New Hanover County, N.C., educator and school administrator, to launch the nonprofit Love Our Children NC. Photo by Erika Arlee

One Good Deed

One Good Deed: Peter Rawitsch (Wheelock’77)

A former elementary school teacher convinces a North Carolina school board to ban out-of-school suspensions for children under eight

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After four decades of teaching, Peter Rawitsch knows we don’t stop learning when we graduate, and sometimes even adults need a lesson in humanity. When he retired with his wife to New Hanover County, N.C., Rawitsch (Wheelock’77) was alarmed by a local school disciplinary policy aimed at the county’s youngest learners. It became clear to him that his work as an educator was far from done. 

“As a former first grade teacher, I was horrified to see how many kindergarteners, first graders, and second graders were being kicked out of school for what could easily be considered minor offenses: things such as ‘inappropriate language’ and ‘showing disrespect’ or ‘insubordination,’” he says. “I’m pretty sure if you look it up in the dictionary, next to the word ‘insubordination’ is a picture of a five-year-old child.” 

Between 2018 and 2019, nearly 900 out-of-school suspensions were issued by the 26 elementary schools in New Hanover County, an economically diverse area with about 25,000 K–12 learners. Rawitsch points out that 61 percent were doled out to Black children. (By contrast, New Hanover County elementary schoolers are 59 percent white.) 

The issue was initially raised by a parents’ group within the local NAACP chapter, which brought the county school board to a vote in 2021, ending in a 7-0 defeat. Rawitsch, a new addition to the chapter, was dismayed to see the members abandon the issue in favor of other things. So was a new friend, Veronica McLaurin-Brown, a former New Hanover County educator for more than 30 years.

“We thought the whole approach of the NAACP was really misguided, in that they really hadn’t reached out to the community or educated the public as to what was going on in the schools,” Rawitsch says. “So, when they went on to other things, Veronica and I said, ‘Well, let’s do something.’ It turned out what we did was we create Love Our Children.”

Part education campaign and part citizens’ brigade, Love Our Children NC started out as a two-person quest that quickly ballooned in size. Rawitsch estimates that, at one point, he and McLaurin-Brown were bringing 15 Love Our Children representatives to speak during the public comment portion of school board meetings, taking up more than half the time allotted.

“Of the hundreds of people we canvassed, I’d say 99 percent of them were unaware of the out-of-school suspension policy, and they were horrified,” Rawitsch recalls. “It wasn’t a hard sell; we’re just appealing to their humanity.”

In New Hanover County, a short-term out-of-school suspension lasts two weeks, or 10 school days, while a long-term suspension is any period longer than 10 days. In their pitch to New Hanover residents, Rawitsch and McLaurin-Brown cited findings from a 2020 UCLA Civil Rights Project Report that outlined how out-of-school suspensions severely alter learning outcomes, leading to learning loss, repeat offenses, higher dropout rates, and ultimately the school-to-prison pipeline.

“Data does show that there are programs that are effective in reducing or eliminating out-of-school suspensions, and just about all of them are upstream solutions. In other words, providing supports for children,” Rawitsch says. “It starts with just sitting down with the child and finding out what is going on, then having them figure out how they can restore justice by using words, fostering understanding, and building on human skills, as opposed to exclusion.” 

In addition to campaigning, Love Our Children met with individual school board members and community leaders, raised funds, and boosted awareness, which included buying billboard space around the county. Rawitsch even took a cue from his lifelong hero, folk musician Pete Seeger, by writing and performing a song (aptly titled “Love Our Children”) at several school board meetings. A second vote was taken in March 2022, ending in a 3-4 defeat. Then, in a dramatic turn, school board member Hugh McManus brought the issue to a surprise vote in a meeting the following month. According to Rawitsch, he just needed more time to think.

“When it became clear he was going to switch his vote, the other board members actually all switched their votes,” he recalls. “So, within that 12-month period, we went from zero to seven to seven to zero.”

New Hanover County was the first district in the state of North Carolina to ban out-of-school suspensions for children under eight. Victory was sweet, but Rawitsch and McLaurin-Brown are far from calling it a day. They have new goals, including changing rules around using seclusion as a form of punishment and adding a clause to the district’s disciplinary hearing policy affirming a young child’s right to have a parent or guardian present. Their most ambitious goal is the total elimination of out-of-school suspensions in as many school districts, and as many states, as possible.

“We want to reach out to other groups and say, if you have parents in your counties that want to talk to us, we’re ready to talk to you,” Rawitsch says. “We’re all doing the best we can, and there’s so far to go.”