On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Unified School District announced discipline reform, following a report of disproportionate arrests and citations involving minority students.

The reforms include replacing suspensions, arrests and citations for inappropriate behavior like fighting on campus or being in possession of alcohol, tobacco or less than a gram of marijuana, with "restorative justice," a more progressive system, NBC News reports. Misbehaving students will receive help in school, such as mental health services and counseling, rather than be removed from school.

On Tuesday, Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said that evidence shows behavioral intervention efforts are more effective than suspension and expulsion.

"We want students to be with us, not pushed out and sent to jail," Los Angeles Superintendent John Deasy said according to The Associated Press.

The LAUSD has about 651,322 students in grades K through 12. Ten percent of the students are black, and 73.4 percent of them are Latino, according to a 2013-2014 data by the district.

"LAUSD is the second largest school district in the country. The fact that it made this commitment to make this change really should be a strong statement to every other district, including those that may continue to follow very heavy suspension expulsion practices," Saenz said according to NBC.

The need for reform was exacerbated by a report by The Labor/Community Strategy Center that found that about 93 percent of the 9,000 arrests and tickets issued during the 2011-2012 school year involved a Latino or black student. Latinos students were found to be twice as likely than white student to be tickets, and black students were found to be six times as likely.

"We have been disproportionately incarcerating, disproportionately citing, and disproportionately suspending youth of color, and it's wrong," Deasy said.

In 2013, black students represented one-third of suspensions.

"This announcement by the LAUSD is an important marker," Manuel Criollo, Director of Organizing for the Community Rights Campaign, said according to NBC. "We have seen how children of color have been put into the school-to-prison pipeline. Now we are seeing momentum in the other direction. We are a new civil rights movement, and we are going to change the cultures in our schools for the better."

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Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @ScharHar.

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