Victims who were suspended or expelled had an average of 2.2 suspensions or expulsions per academic year. They missed an average of 14.6 days of school per year because of suspensions and expulsions.
"Problems with attendance, suspension, and expulsion place youth at risk not only for school failure, but also for severe injury or death from violence," wrote the city's health commissioner, Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, in a letter to Alonso detailing his staff's findings.
In the letter, Sharfstein says it's likely that the results are underestimates, in part because the review did not include suspensions that schools imposed but did not report to the system's central office.
Sharfstein and Alonso said they are continuing to merge data from their two departments to show the broader implications of what happens - or doesn't happen - in schools.
Alonso has faced criticism within the system for urging principals to find alternatives to suspension for nonviolent offenses. While he has been clear that schools must suspend students for violence, some have taken his guidance as a directive not to suspend at all.
But Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III applauded Alonso's efforts.
"When these kids are suspended or expelled, they don't volunteer their time in a soup kitchen," Bealefeld said. "They wait outside the school or just outside the school property and victimize the other kids. That is what they do. He [Alonso] knows that, I know that, all the kids who go to the school know that."
Bealefeld said that the police department can help by stepping up truancy arrests and targeted juvenile arrests.
He said the findings of the review are consistent with what he sees in the streets.
"I am not surprised that bad kids don't go to school," he said. "I'm not surprised that the victims of homicides get in trouble in schools. I don't think it is news, but what is newsworthy and what is a positive thing in this whole situation is Dr. Alonso's commitment to fixing something that has problems."
Next academic year, as principals have more control over their individual school budgets, Alonso has urged them to use their discretionary money to develop in-school suspension programs.
The link between school attendance and homicide is clear in the case of Barbara Griffin, an 18-year-old who was shot and killed last summer outside West Baltimore's Bentalou Elementary School.
