Alternatives to Suspensions and ExpulsionsBy Brian Dean, Tim Peerenboom and Eva Shaw, Department of Public Instruction (DPI) Education Consultants Wisconsin public schools have a responsibility to ensure schools are safe places to learn. At times, schools, and districts resort to zero tolerance policies or exclusionary practices in an effort to ensure student and staff safety. This is despite research to show that these practices have demonstrated disproportional negative long-term impacts. There is a need to change policy and improve practice to reduce the need for reactive discipline that excludes students from school. This article will look at why zero tolerance policies and exclusionary practices are inefficient and deleterious, and how schools can effectively respond to student behavior without resorting to one-size fits all discipline. Zero Tolerance Zero-tolerance policies require school officials to give students a specific, consistent, and harsh punishment, usually suspension or expulsion, when certain rules are broken. The punishment applies regardless of the circumstances, the reasons for the behavior (such as self-defense), or the student’s history of disciplinary problems (Maxime 2018). Changes in laws related to zero tolerance began in the late 1980s and quickly gained momentum, fueled in large part by rising rates of juvenile arrests for violent crimes and a climate in which young people were increasingly seen as dangerous. Feeling pressure to do something, Congress applied the rhetoric and intention of tough-on-crime laws to the school environment and passed the Gun-Free Schools Act in 1994 (Kang-Brown et al. 2013). Zero Tolerance Policies Are Ineffective The notion of deterring future misbehavior is central to the philosophy of zero tolerance, and the impact of any consequence on future behavior is the defining characteristic of effective punishment. Rather than reducing the likelihood of disruption, however, school suspension in general appears to predict higher future rates of misbehavior and suspension among those students who are suspended. In the long term, school suspension and expulsion are moderately associated with a higher likelihood of school dropout and failure to graduate on time (American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force 2008). Exclusionary Practices Have Negative Impacts A report by the American Civil Liberties Union, indicates that nationally, school children lost over 11 million days of instruction (11,360,004) as a result of out-of-school suspension. That’s roughly 66 million hours of missed instruction or more than 63,000 school years of lost learning. Additionally, this loss was not distributed evenly; students of color, predominantly Black or Native American, and students with disabilities miss days at a disproportionate rate to their peers. Black students lost nearly 5 times the amount of instruction as white students (66 days to 14 per 100) (Losen and Whitaker n.d.). Another report from Edsource confirms the finding that black males are disproportionately suspended, while also suggesting that “there is no evidence that racial disparities in discipline – which occur most frequently for African American boys – are due to higher rates of offenses or more serious misbehavior by those students.” This paper notes that most suspensions are not due to a threat to safety and that when controlling for socioeconomic status, middle class African American males are still disproportionately suspended when compared to middle class white students. Additionally, this report posits that positive relationships among students, teachers, and parents are more important than crime or poverty in the neighborhood, from which the students come (Frey 2014). Students with disabilities are disproportionately impacted by Zero Tolerance policies. In the paper previously cited by Losen and Whitaker, It was reported that students with disabilities lost 44 days of instruction (per 100), which was more than double the loss experienced by their non-disabled peers (20 days per 100). This loss of instructional time, due to disproportionate discipline practices, impacts graduation rates and contributes to the school-to-prison pipeline. According to the US Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) for the 2017–2018 school year:
Using data gathered from Wisconsin DPI WISEdash for Districts and Seclusion and Restraint data collection, during the 2021-2022 school year, Wisconsin students with disabilities were removed for over 50,000 school days due to an out-of-school suspension. During the 2020-2021 school year, students with disabilities made up 14.5 percent of the total student population, yet made up 85 percent of the total number of incidents of seclusion and 84 percent of the total number of incidents of restraint. The National Institute of Corrections identifies another disproportionately suspended group of students and how this perpetuates the school-to-prison pipeline. This article presents data demonstrating that Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender, Questioning (LGBTQ) students while making up 5-7 percent of all students, are represented in the juvenile justice system by having a population percentage of 15 percent. This informative article also examines factors that contribute to hostile school climate, such as, “peer-on-peer bullying, dress codes and monitoring of student behavior, unenumerated policies, and lack of access to LGBT resources; harsh school discipline policies criminalize youth—zero-tolerance policies and the policing of students, and disparate application of discipline policies lead(ing) to increased suspensions, expulsions, and arrests.” (Mitchum 2014) How Educators Contribute to Negative Impacts and How Principals May be the Key This graph from the 2018-19 school year, indicates that most discipline is not about safety: (DPI n.d.) According to a study reported by the Brookings Institute, school administrators in charge of discipline, primarily principals, hold a large responsibility in how they affect students’ long-term progress. Depending on whether a principal is strict or lenient can have life changing impacts on students. For instance, this study used data from disciplinary, education, and criminal justice records from 2008 to 2016 in North Carolina to examine the impact of principal-driven disciplinary decisions on middle school student outcomes. The first thing they discovered was there are large differences in how principals respond to student behavior. For instance, some principals hardly ever suspend students, while others use suspensions for relatively minor, non-injurious behavior like swearing. Ultimately, the study found that “stricter principal disciplinary approaches have especially disruptive impacts on students who commit minor offenses. Students who are reported for such minor misconduct under a harsher principal, as compared with those reported under a more lenient principal, ultimately show:
What Can Schools Do? Policy Change: Providing principals and other administrators the opportunity to provide positive discipline alternatives to students and encouraging them to utilize a range of options when working with students, shows the power that a simple change in policy can have on student outcomes. During the Safe and Supportive Schools Grant, which the Wisconsin DPI was awarded in 2010 by the U.S. Department of Education, Mukwonago School District implemented several highly successful evidenced-based practices, as well as a significant policy-based change in working with its students. Mukwonago shifted their policy on suspensions from one of punishment to one of engagement. During the 2010-11 school year, 106 students were suspended and these students missed a combined 347 days of learning. At the end of the 2013-14 school year, just 28 students (a 73 percent drop) had been suspended for a total of 55 days (a 84 percent drop). These positive results were partly achieved by a policy change that added academic support for students who were displaying minor negative behaviors (DPI 2015). Universal Practices: Foundational and Tier 1 supports in an Equitable-Multi-level System of Supports can enhance school climate and improve student achievement while reducing the need for exclusionary discipline. Here are a few of these supports for review: Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports Restorative practices: Examples of how Restorative Practices may look in schools include community circles, classroom agreements, and the use of affective statements. Restorative practices are not about leaving behaviors unpunished, rather they:
Formal trainings in Restorative Practices are available from the WI Safe and Healthy Schools Center. Abeyance Programs: Programs that allow a decision on punishment to be withheld until a student completes an agreed upon learning intervention, can be useful tools for improving behavior and reducing long-term negative outcomes for students. Here are just a few of these types of programs that help intervene with students who may be involved with alcohol or other substances: SBIRT- Screen Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment
Pre-Expulsion Pre-Expulsion is an abeyance strategy, which:
A Stipulated Expulsion Agreement may:
Examples can be found on the Alternatives to Expulsion: Case Studies of Wisconsin School Districts publication. How Schools Can Better Work with Students with Disabilities Students with disabilities not only are disproportionately affected by exclusionary discipline policies, they also have unique protections and according to federal law. For students with disabilities, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires IEP teams consider the use of positive behavioral interventions and supports to address behaviors that interfere with a student’s learning or the learning of others. This requirement applies to all students with disabilities, aged 3-21, regardless of the student’s category of disability. (See Information Bulletin 07.01 on Addressing the Behavioral Needs of Students with Disabilities.) The Wisconsin DPI provides resources and guidance to support alternatives to exclusionary practices for students with disabilities.
Additionally, updated guidance from US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) provides resources for schools and districts to meet the needs of students with disabilities and avoid the discriminatory use of student discipline.
Summary With regard to changing student behavior, Zero Tolerance and other exclusionary discipline, which have been in place since the mid-1980’s, have not demonstrated effectiveness in making positive changes in student behavior, but have demonstrated disproportional negative long-term impacts including a lack of school achievement, absenteeism, and fueling the school-to-prison pipeline. This article has offered practical and easy to utilize programming to address student behavior in an equitable and effective manner. Among the easiest to implement change schools can effect is policy change. It is incumbent for school administrators to review their behavior policies and ask, is this policy equitable, effective, and based on sound educational principles? It is, after all, these administrators who hold the key to improving their students’ outcomes. References Frey, Susan. 2014. “National report highlights racial disparities in suspensions.” EdSource. https://edsource.org/2014/national-report-highlights-racial-disparities-in-suspensions/59344. Kang-Brown, Jacob, Jennifer Trone, Jennifer Fratello, and Tarika Daftary-Kapur. 2013. “A Generation Later: What We’ve Learned about Zero Tolerance in Schools.” Vera Institute of Justice. https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/zero-tolerance-in-schools-policy-brief.pdf. Losen, Daniel and Whitaker, Amir. n.d. “11 Million Days Lost: Race, Discipline and Safety at U.S. Public Schools (Part 1).” American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Accessed October 20, 2022. https://www.aclu.org/report/11-million-days-lost-race-discipline-and-safety-us-public-schools-part-1. Maxime, Farnel. 2018. “Zero-Tolerance Policies and the School to Prison Pipeline.” Shared Justice. https://www.sharedjustice.org/domestic-justice/2017/12/21/zero-tolerance-policies-and-the-school-to-prison-pipeline. Mitchum, Preston and Aisha C. Moodie-Mills. 2014. “Beyond Bullying: How Hostile School Climate Perpetuates the School-to-Prison Pipeline for LGBT Youth.” Center for American Progress (CAP). https://www.americanprogress.org/article/beyond-bullying/. Sorensen, Lucy. 2021. “Do principals hold the key to fixing school discipline?” Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2021/06/14/do-principals-hold-the-key-to-fixing-school-discipline/. Williams, Valerie. 2022. “Dear Colleague Letter on Implementation of IDEA Discipline Provisions.” United States Department Of Education. Office Of Special Education And Rehabilitative Services Office Of Special Education Programs. https://sites.ed.gov/idea/files/dcl-implementation-of-idea-discipline-provisions.pdf. Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI). 2009. “Alternatives to Expulsion: Case Studies of Wisconsin School Districts.” https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/sspw/pdf/expulsionalts.pdf. Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI). n.d. “Incident Count by Behavior (2020-21).” WISEdash Public Portal. Accessed October 20, 2022. https://wisedash.dpi.wi.gov/Dashboard/dashboard/20218. Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI). 2015. “Wisconsin Success Stories: Safe and Supportive Schools (S3) Grant.” https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/sspw/pdf/s3successstoriesMay2015.pdf. American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force. 2008. “Are zero tolerance policies effective in the schools?: an evidentiary review and recommendations.” The American psychologist, 63(9), 852–862. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.63.9.852. |
