We know that elementary and middle school suspensions can lead to poor academic performance, repeat suspensions, an increase in juvenile delinquency and dropouts, and lost school funding.

The Kwame Foundation established the Tyrone Thompson Institute for Nonviolence to provide a unique and success-oriented approach to school suspensions in the St. Louis Public School District, first through eighth grade.

This program carries on the work of my brother Tyrone Thompson, a fierce education advocate who believed in and mentored hundreds of disadvantaged male youth. Tyrone, a former police officer and police chief, was mentoring young men at Carnahan High School and developing youth programs when he was killed by two teenagers in an attempted robbery in 2010.

The Kwame Foundation addresses the issue of school suspensions with vision, hope, funding and adult mentors, who train and assign St. Louis Community College students to tutor and mentor suspended students.

In its first year, the TTIN program worked with more than 180 Gateway Middle School and Dunbar Elementary School students who had been suspended for fighting, bullying and assault. After participating in the program, only one in 10 students was suspended again for bad behavior. Only two students were suspended again for bad behavior more than twice.

The St. Louis School District sets aside tutoring space and provides support. St. Louis Community College houses the program at its William J. Harrison Education Center in north St. Louis and helps train the college students.

Everyone wins. Suspended students get one-on-one attention in their own school settings. College students learn about community service, tutoring and mentoring. Parents build parenting skills at required one-day workshops. And the local schools retain state funding.

We are recruiting additional volunteers to mentor and tutor the students. Learn more about the program at kwamefoundation.org.

Anthony Thompson • St. Louis

Founder, Kwame Foundation

ST. Louis Post Dispatch ©March 2015