Each time a student is removed from the classroom in the name of discipline, it can do more harm than good. Students barred from attending class due to punitive measures are more likely to get into more trouble, and they are at risk of getting behind with schoolwork because of lost instructional time. What’s more, study after study shows racial disparities with both suspensions and expulsions.

Last month, the San Diego Unified School Board unanimously approved a new discipline policy, one that is a step away from punitive discipline for students. The new policy emphasizes alternative-to-suspension programs for students who get in trouble, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Schools will be required to utilize “restorative” interventions before opting to suspend a student.

The new policy also addresses grading practices throughout the district. Teachers will separate non-academic factors from academic grades and give students the opportunity to re-do assignments.

While California already bans suspensions for “willful defiance” for elementary and middle grades, the San Diego Unified School Board plans to negotiate with teachers to do away with such suspensions across all grades. Those in favor of the move point out that banning willful defiance suspensions will help address racial disparities, particularly in the disciplining of Black and Latino students.

Discriminatory discipline is a severe problem in the United States, according to a national analysis of school suspension data by the UCLA Civil Rights Project.

Lost Opportunities

The Center for Civil Rights Remedies and Learning Policy Institute found “disturbing disparities” among racial groups regarding school suspensions, Patch reports. Their study titled “Lost Opportunities: How Disparate School Discipline Continues to Drive Differences in the Opportunity to Learn” looked at the impact of out-of-school suspensions on instructional time.

There were 11,392,474 days of instruction lost in America due to out-of-school suspension during the 2015-16 school year. The researchers say that is the equivalent of 62,596 years of instruction lost. What’s more, the difference in suspension rates between Black and white students was stark. The report shows:

• Black students lost 103 days per 100 students enrolled, 82 more days than the 21 days their white peers lost due to out-of-school suspensions.
• Black boys lost 132 days per 100 students enrolled.
• Black girls had the second-highest rate, at 77 days per 100 students enrolled, which was seven times the rate of lost instruction experienced by white girls at the secondary level.

“These stark disparities in lost instruction explain why we cannot close the achievement gap if we do not close the discipline gap,” said Dan Losen, director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies and the lead researcher on the report. “With all the instructional loss students have had due to COVID-19, educators should have to provide very sound justification for each additional day they prohibit access to instruction.”

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Restorative justice is on the minds of educators in California who seek to reduce student suspensions and expulsions. The goal is to keep youths in the classroom whenever it is possible to do so—the days of removing kids from class for disruption and defiance seem to be largely a thing of the past.

Many large school districts up and down the state have histories of disproportionately suspending and expelling minorities and youths with learning disabilities. The data reveals that such demographics are removed from class at exponentially higher rates than their white counterparts.

Several legislative reforms have led educators to adopt new approaches to dealing with students who act up or get in trouble. Programs were established in the Oakland, Los Angeles, and San Diego Unified School Districts that utilize alternatives to traditional methods of school discipline.

In 2006, the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) became the first to implement a restorative justice program, EdSource reports. Restorative justice coordinators and facilitators work with teachers and students to resolve conflicts in a manner that does not involve removing children from school. The program has served as a model for other school districts across the country and other countries.

Naturally, programs like the one in Oakland and others cost a significant amount of money to facilitate. Recent budget cuts may undermine the effectiveness of Oakland’s restorative justice program or jeopardize it altogether.

Funding Restorative Justice

“In recent years, OUSD has made significant strides in changing the prevailing paradigm of punishment and exclusion in response to real or perceived student misconduct,” states a report from the Executive Office of the President – December 2016. “These gains reflect deep structural changes at both the district and school site level resulting from more positive, restorative and trauma-informed responses to student behavior.”

The OUSD program’s future was put in jeopardy due to the school district’s proposed budget cuts announced earlier this year. Fortunately, the program’s achievements have not gone unnoticed, and the city and private backers have stepped lend support. State data shows that suspensions fell in Oakland by 48 percent between the 2011-12 and 2017-18 school years.

The city of Oakland issued a one-time $690,000 grant to fund the program for the 2019-20 school year, according to the article. Various foundations and philanthropists have also contributed to the effort.

There are no guarantees the program will be funded in the future, says David Yusem, Oakland Unified’s restorative justice coordinator. He adds that “We need to make adjustments based on the current fiscal reality.” Yusem points out that the program may need to be altered to compensate for funding cuts.

“We are just beginning to have those meetings,” Yusem said. “We’re taking stock and sort of going from there in terms of where are our priorities and how we can hit them while having less money.”

It’s likely that Los Angeles and San Diego Unified School Districts will face similar challenges in the coming years.

California School Discipline Attorney

If your child is facing difficulties at school and is at risk of expulsion, then please contact the Law Office of Katie Walsh. Juvenile Defense attorney Walsh can represent your child in many ways and advocate for the needs of your family.

At high schools across America, suspension and expulsion should only be a last resort. Young people who act up in class or break school policies are often dealing with problems at home. They may also be contending with emotional and mental health problems that inhibit their ability to stay focused.

When school districts remove children from the classroom, it can put teens on a path toward more significant problems in the future. No longer receiving support from educators, suspended and expelled youths are at considerable risk of engaging in activities that can land them in handcuffs. Student’s removals are the beginning of the school-to-prison pipeline.

School districts that take measures to keep youths in class have an opportunity to affect change. Helping students understand why their behavior is problematic, and what they can do to cope with their feelings, is essential. When young people are given the tools to respond to situations in healthy ways, they are less likely to get into more trouble down the road.

Many U.S. schools are moving away from resorting to using punitive disciplinary actions. Research shows that student bodies benefit from providing support programs. Providing teenagers access to counselors and psychologists is a step towards reducing problems in the classroom. The data indicates that intervention programs are more effective at encouraging adolescents to change their behavior than removing them from class.

Intervention Programs Reduce Suspension and Expulsion Rates

The Antelope Valley Union High School District in northern Los Angeles County has taken steps in reducing class removals. In the last decade, the district’s suspension rate fell 47%, and the expulsion rate dropped 79%, according to the Antelope Valley Press. Educators were able to achieve this feat by implementing intervention programs.

Instead of resorting to suspension and expulsion, schools attempt to address the unique needs of students first. When a teenage boy or girl gets in trouble, the AVUHSD relies on a discipline matrix to help determine what level of intervention is warranted. The district had student support centers, and four social workers were hired to work with at-risk youths.

Youths who are directed to AVUHSD support centers, work with counselors, psychologists, and social workers. They have opportunities to discuss what is happening outside of school; they can learn coping mechanisms that are less disruptive to the class. The goal is to help at-risk teens learn from their mistakes and excel.

“When a student has to be removed from class they are placed in an environment where their social and emotional needs are met,” said a district official said. “The goal is addressing it and getting them back in the classroom.”

Support centers have paid off; from 2017-18 to 2018-19, suspensions decreased 13% and expulsions 31%.

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The Bureau of Children’s Justice, a division of the state Attorney General’s Office, is tasked with protecting at-risk children. There are laws which are meant to protect vulnerable young people; it’s the Bureau’s job to enforce such protections. However, children fall through the cracks time and time again.

California school districts have a long history of suspending and expelling minorities and intellectually disabled children. Despite recent efforts to work with children who are having problems in school before resorting to punitive measures, many youths are suspended at alarming rates.

Black and Latino children are suspended and expelled at exceedingly higher rates than white kids in many school districts. This is true even when children of color make up only a slight fraction of the student body. Whether we are looking at high school or elementary school, the data does not lie—minorities bear the brunt of the discipline meted out by faculty.

An investigation is underway to determine why a rural California school district is suspending students at an exponentially higher rate than the statewide average, EdSource reports. A report shows that Butte County’s Oroville City Elementary School District’s suspension rate is three times higher than average in California.

Alarming Suspension Rates in California

Oroville City (pop. 229,294), just north of Sacramento, is the seat of Butte County. Oroville City Elementary suspended 12 percent of its students during the 2017-18 school year, according to the article. However, only four (4) percent of students in public schools were suspended, at least once, across the entire state.

Although black students make up only three percent of the district’s enrollment, they are suspended far more often than their white classmates. An EdSource analysis of the data shows that black students were suspended 70 percent more often than their white students at Oroville City Elementary. Moreover, black kids were suspended two times more often as white children at Ishi Hills Middle School.

During the 2016-17 school year, students in the district were out of school more often due to suspension than virtually all other students in the state, according to the UCLA Center for Civil Rights Remedies.

“I’m glad the attorney general is paying attention to both the high rates and large racial disparities,” said Daniel Losen, the director of the UCLA center and author of the organization’s suspension report. “There is a lot districts can do to lower suspension rates without jeopardizing the learning environment.”

The statistics are troubling for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that laws prohibit suspending K-3 students for being disruptive. Senate Bill 419 was introduced this year to expand those protections to grades 4 to 8. Whenever young people are not in a classroom, they are put at significant risk of getting into more trouble. The school-to-prison pipeline begins with suspension and expulsion.

Orange County School Discipline Attorney

If your child is facing expulsion from his or her school, then it is vital that you turn to an expert for guidance. Former prosecutor Katie Walsh has an extensive amount of experience advocating for young people who face problems at school. Please contact us today to learn how Attorney Walsh can help your child with their school expulsion hearing.

The push for restorative justice in California schools is thought to be a step in the right direction. Actions emphasizing the importance of child well-being, at home and in school, are a far cry from the punitive approaches of the past.

Rather than suspend or expel a student, some children are finding support. The goal is to keep young people in the classroom and out of the school-to-prison pipeline. California is one state that is moving away from disciplining students for minor offenses; choosing instead to focus on conflict mediation.

Lawmakers are working hard to end suspensions for “disruption and defiance” in all grades. We recently covered the topic of Senate Bill 419, a bill that would ban out-of-school suspensions for “defiant and disruptive behavior” in grades K-12.

While the future of SB-419 is uncertain, the Golden State has already made progress in reducing suspension rates. According to the California Department of Education, 710,000 suspensions were issued during the 2011-12 school year in California. During the 2017-18 school year, only 363,000 students received suspensions.

Many people believe that the move away from punitive actions for relatively minor offenses is good. However, there is not much data on how reforms are improving school climates, Lake County Record-Bee reports. A new study aims to shed some light on this subject.

California School Safety Study

A five-year, $5-million study led by the Washington D.C.-based American Institutes for Research (AIR) is in an 18-month planning period stage, according to the article. Researchers are determining three California school districts to focus on in the next three-and-a-half years. AIR is working in conjunction with Virginia Tech University’s Laboratory for the Study of Youth Inequality and Public Counsel, a Los Angeles-based public interest law firm. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is funding the study.

“We still have a misunderstanding of school safety, which most think of as the physical safety of students,” said Patricia Campie, AIR’s principal researcher for the study. “But the more important and more difficult thing is understanding the social and emotional safety of children.”

The research team will look at multiple factors and consider the impact policies have on one demographic to the next. They will also consider how the outcomes differ in various areas, including urban, suburban or rural settings. The main areas of focus in the research, according to the article, include:

• School discipline policies and how they are enforced;
• how classmates treat students from different backgrounds and orientations;
• and, whether there are people and protocols for addressing the trauma students experience at home and the quality of parent and community engagement.

Lead researcher Campie hopes that the findings will break school officials and policymakers of the mentality that one approach can work in every school. The final report could be available as early as 2022.

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The Offices of Katie Walsh has the experience to advocate for families whose children are facing disciplinary action in school. Expulsion can significantly derail a young person’s life and create more problems.

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“The school-to-prison pipeline starts and ends with schools,” said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, in 2013.

When kids are in the classroom, they are much less likely to engage in risky behaviors. It is so important that school districts across the country do what they can to keep young people in school, and off the street. Suspension and expulsion are warranted at times, but providing struggling young people with support can prevent the need, in many cases.

The juvenile crime rate, especially violent youth offenses, is on the decline, The San Francisco Chronicle reports. While law enforcement experts point out that crime is cyclical, an unexpected, three-decade trend is underway. Since the 1990s, youth assaults, homicides, theft, and truancy have steadily decreased.

When a unique pattern occurs, it is only natural for experts to speculate on the reasons why. The school-to-prison pipeline still exists, but it seems that some initiatives have had a welcome effect. Perhaps most interesting is that the decline in youth violent crime transcends demographics.

What’s Behind The Youth Crime Drop?

There are so many variables to consider, factors that could influence juvenile crime rates. It’s challenging to put one’s finger on the driving force behind the decrease in youth criminality. Jill Tucker, writing for the SF Chronicle, lays out some of the likely catalysts in ever-falling youth crime rates in the United States. Tucker has been writing about education in California for 18 years.

Some leading theories on what is influencing this nationwide trend include a decline in “crack” cocaine use, according to the article. In the 1980s and ’90s, urban youths were exploited by drug dealers to sell crack on “the corner.” Adolescents and teens were ideal candidates because they are not subject to adult drug laws.

Other leading hypotheses for the trend in question involve reductions in lead exposure and adult mass incarceration. According to one study, lead (a once common ingredient of paint and gasoline) can disrupt brain development, thus influencing impulse and behavior regulation. In recent decades, the adult prison population has risen exponentially; causing some experts to theorize that there are fewer criminals to lure youths into crime.

Improvements in education is another topic of serious consideration. The decline in youth violent crime happens to coincide with more kids in preschool and the launch and spread of education programs. After-school programs can keep kids out of trouble. The article notes that the high school graduation rate hit 85 percent in 2017, following a two-decade trend. The combination of all three factors has likely had an impact on crime reduction.

“The nation needs to focus dollars and efforts on reforming school climates to keep students engaged in ways that will lead them toward college and a career and away from crime and prison,” said Bob Wise.

Orange County School Expulsion Attorney

The Law Offices of Katie Walsh specializes in helping families whose sons and daughters are facing the prospect of school expulsion. Attorney Walsh understands that a minor infraction can have a significant impact on a child’s future. She can advocate for your family.

Please contact us at your earliest convenience to learn more about we help you and your loved one negotiate alternatives to expulsion.

School “disruption and defiance” is a subject we follow closely at The Law Offices of Katie Walsh. Disruption is probably self-explanatory; willful defiance is defined as: “disrupting school activities or otherwise willfully defying the valid authority of school staff.” In the State of California, a 2014 law prohibits K-3 out-of-school suspensions for the above type of offense.

Since 2014, several lawmakers have come out in favor of expanding the ban on disruption and defiance suspensions. Many experts contend that removing kids from classrooms for disrupting class fuels what has come to be known as the “school-to-prison” pipeline. Moreover, the data indicate that these types of suspensions disproportionately affect blacks and Latinos, LGBT students, and students with disabilities.

“When you look at the data on who is suspended, you can’t help but see the stark reality,” Sen. Nancy Skinner tells EdSource. “Boys of color, kids in special education, LGBTQ kids — kids who don’t fit all of our cultural norms — are targeted due to the implicit bias that we know is present in every institution we have.”

In many instances, students are acting up because of family issues at home or untreated mental health issues. Extricating a student from the classroom or school entirely, for lengths of time, is unlikely to address the underlying problems the adolescent or teenager is facing. Expanding the ban on specific types of out-of-school suspensions could lead to more kids getting support and guidance. Alternative means of discipline could help children learn to cope with their issues healthily rather than acting out for attention.

Arguments For and Against Disruption and Defiance Bans

Those against expanding the ban of willful defiance suspensions argue that it strips teachers of the power to keep order and that it infringes on the other (disciplined) students right to learn without constant distraction. The camp for expansion say that suspending students for merely acting up puts them on a course to more problems, Education Dive reports. The divergent opinions on this subject will soon be in the spotlight once again, owing that is to legislation re-introduced by California State Sen. Nancy Skinner.

Last October, former Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed Senate Bill 607; a bill that would have expanded “disruption and defiance” out-of-school suspensions to include K-8. Sen. Skinner always wanted the ban to include K-12, but she didn’t believe Gov. Brown would support; so, she settled for a bill narrower in scope. Even still, Brown rejected the proposal. Now, with Brown out of office, Sen. Skinner hopes that Gov. Gavin Newsom will support her cause.

Senate Bill 419: Pupil discipline: suspensions: willful defiance would ban out-of-school suspensions for “defiant and disruptive behavior” in grades K-12. The bill, until January 1, 2025, would prohibit the suspension of a student in any of grades 9 to 12, inclusive, for those acts. The five-year period (sunset clause) will give officials time to determine the effectiveness of alternative discipline measures with high-schoolers.

The point of the evaluation is to make sure that the removal of this tool (suspensions) is not impacting classrooms or teachers in a negative way, ” Skinner said.

The Governor’s office has yet to comment on SB 419.

Orange County School Expulsion Attorney

Juvenile defense attorney Katie Walsh can help your family navigate the school discipline process. If your child is facing school expulsion, then please contact us at your earliest convenience. Katie Walsh will work tirelessly to safeguard your child’s rights and seek alternatives to school expulsion for your son or daughter.