[C]oncerns over the disproportionate suspension and expulsion of students of color and students with disabilities from Vermont’s public schools has brought a far-reaching group of stakeholders together this month to meet with the Agency of Education.
A report issued earlier this year by Vermont Legal Aid, called “Kicked Out!, What’s Happening, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Stop It” found that minority and disabled students were banished from school two to three times more often than their peers.
Students in Vermont missed more than 8,000 school days in a single school year because of discipline, the report says. (A full copy of the report is available at Legal Aid’s website.)
Jay Diaz, a Legal Aid attorney and the lead author of the report, who also chairs the Vermont Dignity in Schools Coalition, said the coalition has brought together school administrators to address the problem.
“We have a broad group, a wide coalition that works with kids that are most likely to be kicked out of school,” said Diaz. “Members have spoken to many schools across the state from Burlington to Brattleboro about school discipline issues, and how they can reform their own policies to be more fair, more equitable, and make sure they’re not kicking kids out of school unnecessarily.”
Steps need to be taken to ensure that expelled students continue to receive an education, even if they are out of school for valid disciplinary reasons, said Diaz.
The Vermont Dignity in Schools Coalition is made up of students from a Bennington College legal justice group, members of the Vermont Human Rights Commission, as well as public defenders, school board members, and advocates for youth, restorative justice and juvenile justice systems.
Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe confirmed through a spokesperson that she will be meeting with Diaz this month, joined by a data specialist and possibly others from the Agency of Education.
Testimony on the report was given to both the House and Senate Education Committees this session. A bill that emerged from the Senate Judiciary Committee, H.490, specifically called for the creation of a Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee, said Diaz.
“We’re excited and very pleased about what’s happened, because we’ve succeeded in building a lot of awareness about this issue in the Legislature, and in the House and Senate Education committees,” said Diaz.
Oversight Committee’s Early Steps
The new committee’s role is intended to analyze data regarding how a child’s removal from school as a form of discipline – called “exclusionary discipline” – is being employed in Vermont public and independent schools.
The committee will “identify whether students’ access to education is impaired or as a result of disciplinary actions, and to what extent the criminal justice system is involved in school disciplinary matters.”
Lawmakers raised questions about whether the disciplinary actions were inadvertently creating a “school-to-prison” pipeline, Diaz said.
The Senate Education Committee has requested several years’ worth of discipline rates and demographic information from the Agency of Education to show possible disparities across the state, Diaz said.
“We’re looking forward to working with the Agency of Education and the schools to see how we can ensure the needs of our most vulnerable students are met across the state,” said Diaz.
The Most Vulnerable Students
Many of the students highlighted in the report don’t have the kind of communication skills that more privileged children do, Diaz said. Teachers need training to better communicate with students and de-escalate difficult situations, he said.
“For many young people, they don’t have the language, or maybe even the ability to express themselves in a way that we commonly expect,” said Diaz.
That lack of effective communication with adults can lead to confrontations and verbal altercations that result in a “kid being asked to go home for the day.”
“It can end up being combative, and problematic and disruptive,” he said.
Systematic change can stop kids from being sent home because of something like a small verbal altercation, he said.
Roi Ankori-Karlinsky, a member of the student-run Bennington College Incarceration Task Force, said approaching school discipline as an extension of incarceration “seemed like a solid entry point into our public policy activities.” Ankori-Karlinsky wrote an op-ed on school expulsions for VTDigger.
Ankori-Karlinsky said he was heartened by the coalition’s commitment to changing outcomes. “Research across the country has drawn a clear connection between excessive uses of suspensions and expulsions and a higher likelihood of being incarcerated,” he said.
