Black students in the Pflugerville school district are 3.5 times more likely to be charged with assault than other students, according to a recent study.
Measure, an Austin-based research and public education nonprofit that uses data to address social disparities, found during the 2016-17 school year that 54 percent of assault charges at school campuses were related to black students.
After learning of a seemingly disproportionate number of African-American youth being charged with assault in the Pflugerville School District (PFISD), MEASURE formed a partnership with PFISD, Black Pflugerville, and PFISD Police Department. Through our united efforts we discovered that Black children were charged with assault in 54% of the cases in the 2016-2017 school year, while only accounting for 16.8% of the student population. Measure brought these numbers to the attention of the district and Pflugerville community members.