THIS BILL just passed says schools in California grades k-8 are no longer allowed to suspend students for “willful defiance”. The idea behind it was that too many students of color were being suspended and they want schools to come up with alternatives rather than kick kids out school.
My opinion: as long as the school tried some alternatives first like communication with parents, they should have the right. Kids being disruptive prevents teachers from teaching and the other kids from learning.
This bill tells kids its ok to walk in late, cause major disruptions, call the teacher names, and act like a total ass.
It could devolve into another form of segregation, with separate classrooms for trouble kids, who would also just happen to be lower-income people of color.
Way back, late 80’s/early 90’s, somewhere in there when one of my relatives was early in her teaching career, they started a program that, along with other things, dictated that a student couldn’t be held back more than twice.
At first, it made some amount of sense, they had issues with kids being held back year after year and they’d end up with 12 year olds in 4th grade or kids finally finishing grade school for no reason other than they turned 18.
But they ended up with a new problem. Once a kid had been held back twice, they had nothing left to lose. Now all she was really doing was babysitting for these kids for 8 hours a day.
I don’t know where that all landed, but hopefully something got figured out.
Part of the problem I see suspending/expelling students is that it becomes a ‘not in my backyard’ problem. I understand that if a school has so many problems with a given student they’d rather just be rid of them, but the kid is going to end up somewhere and likely going to cause all the same problems elsewhere.
PS, the article isn’t readable if you have an adblocker on.
Well, your characterization is deeply cynical. Alternatives like communicating with parents? What are the chances that the parents are the problem? Isn’t it more disruptive for the kid to send them packing to a new school every 8 weeks? And burdening their no-good parents with trying to navigate this chaos?
I say this bill is a good first step, it basically says - “Hey schools, do your job! Find a solution!” Now of course, IRL this is going to require more resources and money to tackle. Hopefully that will be recognized and addressed in due course.
If I’m reading the law correctly, there’s still a huge number of things that can get you suspended/expelled. It’s just removing the generic “disruptive behavior” as a reason. And only for grades K through 8, which is roughly from the age of 5 through 13.
Should we really be suspending 10 year olds for being “disruptive.” Do you really think there’s a bunch of 9 year olds going “yeah, I can be an ass now because the law allows it!”
As a teacher of nearly two decades, I will say it is absolutely the case that teachers commonly see misbehavior on the part of black students as criminal and dangerous, when similar behavior by white students is dismissed as routine stuff. I will also say that I have known several teachers over the years who seemed to go out of their way to bully and antagonize black students. There are REAL problems with adults wanting a sort of fanning subservience from black students they don’t demand from anyone else.
I also think that it’d be more honest to just kick a kid out than suspend them over and over again, until they are hopelessly lost and they drop out on their own. How on earth is missing school a punishment for a struggling kid? As a teacher, missing students always created more work for me than anything. And the suspended child comes back even less engaged and more disruptive.
Finally, it’s a bit of a false dilemma. There are ways to discipline a child besides suspending them.
Does this law apply only to out-of-school suspensions (OSS), or to in-school suspensions (ISS)? OSS has always been a bad idea, even regardless of any bias, because the students who receive it are likely to view it as a reward, not a punishment. Which is why most schools are now moving to ISS, where the problem student is still isolated from other students, but in a room in the school under the supervision of the school’s discipline official, and still expected to do whatever work the regular teachers send down to them.
But it’s not being ‘disruptive’ it’s being willfully disruptive, there’s a difference. There’s a difference between the autistic kid who makes noises all day long and the bully that torments kids or shoots spitballs at the teacher.
In any case, I’m reading it as they now can’t suspend or expel a student unless they broke a law (plus a few other specific cases). I’m going to guess that not much will change with who gets expelled, they just made the lines more black and white.
They have an awful lot going on in that bill about drugs.
(c) Unlawfully possessed, used, sold, or otherwise furnished, or been under the influence of, a controlled substance
(d) Unlawfully offered, arranged, or negotiated to sell a controlled substance
(j) Unlawfully possessed or unlawfully offered, arranged, or negotiated to sell drug paraphernalia
(p) Unlawfully offered, arranged to sell, negotiated to sell, or sold the prescription drug Soma
It’s the Soma one that caught me, it’s the brand name for a CIV prescription muscle relaxer (it would be like having one line just about “Valium” or “Vicodin”). I’m not sure why that drug, by brand name, would need it’s own separate line when it’s covered under the other parts. I have to wonder if they’re having a problem with it at the school.
Hell yes they can. I’ve heard of even first graders assaulting teachers, blatantly being disruptive like calling teachers names, throwing things, running around the room, etc…
A friend of ours taught in one KCMO district 2nd grade room once and lasted just one semester. The kids were total BRATS and that same group had gone thru 3 teachers in the first grade. The principal would do nothing and said she only wanted to deal with positives.
And hell yes “disruptive behavior” can be bad. Your talking, constantly interrupting teachers, walking in and out of class whenever you feel. Walking around the halls and going into any class you wish. Yelling and screaming. Refusing to do any work… just read Velocity’s post above of just how bad things can get.
AND if you dont nip that stuff in the bud it gets way worse. Then you see assaults on teachers and fighting and bringing weapons to school.
ISS works if you have maybe 15 students in a room with a teacher. Get 20-30 or more… then what? What if teachers dont send work down? What if kids act up in ISS? What if they have to put a sub in ISS? What if a kid just up and walks out of ISS?
From the article in 2018: And when comparing out of school suspensions issued in each semester, it certainly appears the district is taking a more aggressive stand. The district issued 242 suspensions in the first semester of last school year and 373 this past semester.
A new superintendent said: “I think it’s an indication we have done exactly what we set out to do,” Hoh said. “We were going to make sure that poor student behavior would not be tolerated.”