Professor in the School Psychology program at Indiana University
Plenary Presenter: Reaching a Critical Juncture for Our Kids: The Need to Reassess School-Justice Practices
Plenary Moderator: Discipline Policies, Successful Schools and Racial Justice
Russell Skiba, Ph.D., is a Professor in the School Psychology program at Indiana University. Skiba is currently Director of the Equity Project, a consortium of research projects offering evidence-based information to educators and policymakers on equity in special education and school discipline. He was a member of the writing team that produced the U.S. Department of Education's document on school safety Early Warning, Timely Response, and a member and lead author of the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on Zero Tolerance. In Indiana, he served in 2008 as co-chair of the Education Subcommittee of the Indiana Commission on Disproportionality in Youth Services, a statewide commission that led to the passage of three bills addressing disproportionality in education. Skiba has testified before the United States Civil Rights Commission, spoken before both Houses of Congress on issues of school discipline and school violence. He was awarded the Push for Excellence Award by the Rainbow Coalition/Operation PUSH for his work on African American disproportionality in school suspension. In his current research, he is seeking to implement a statewide network of culturally responsive positive behavior supports to address issues of disciplinary disproportionality, and conducting case study research to better understand the factors that contribute to racial and ethnic over-representation in suspension and expulsion.