[C]ivil rights advocates are urging Vermont lawmakers to restrict the use of suspension and expulsion in schools.
Lawmakers debated the connection between modes of school discipline and incarceration during a meeting of the Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee.
“We believe every child in Vermont deserves equal access to their education and an equal chance to learn from their mistakes,” Diaz said. “Unfortunately, in Vermont school children who misbehave even in minor ways may not get that chance to learn from their mistakes.”
Exclusionary punishment, such as suspension or expulsion, can have serious implications for those kids in the long-term, Diaz told lawmakers.
Diaz hopes Vermont lawmakers will look at decreasing school discipline practices that are exclusionary, and crafting school discipline policies so that the focus is on safety, rather than on punishment for behaviors that do not put others at risk.
Some Vermont students have faced suspension for relatively minor offenses, such as running in the halls or cutting class, according to Diaz.
“Really, what I hope is that we use suspension as a last resort,” Diaz said. “I want to see schools work with struggling students, not kick them out first thing for minor problems.”
Ben Simpson, of the Bennington Incarceration Task Force, said that students who are suspended tend to be more likely to adopt antisocial behaviors, such as smoking, binge drinking and dropping out of school.
Simpson agreed with Diaz that schools should have a higher threshold for deciding when to use exclusionary discipline.
“I think what they should be looking at is safety, or repeated uncontrollable disruptions,” Simpson said. “Both of those are much better and higher standards that would have to be met for excluding a kid from school.”
In schools that commit to positive behavioral interventions and supports, only 3 percent of students are referred for discipline two or more times. In schools that don’t use that approach, 20 percent of students receive two or more disciplinary referrals.
However, Holcombe pointed out that while many surveys of incarcerated adults find that they were suspended or expelled from school when they were young, there’s no data in Vermont that tracks the proportion of students who face such disciplinary action that go on to be incarcerated.
“Experience suggests that most kids that are suspended do not end up incarcerated,” Holcombe said.
Lawmakers on Thursday raised concerns about how the state’s school system is equipped to work with children whose families are impacted by opiate addiction.
According to the Department for Children and Families, there are hundreds of children under age 3 currently in state custody — a record increase likely linked to the opiate addiction crisis.
Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, who chairs the committee, raised concerns about whether Vermont’s education system will be prepared to work with those children who will be entering schools in a few years.
Sears said that the statistics from DCF “lead us to believe that all facets of our society need to be able to deal with them, not just the DCF caseworkers.”
Rep. Mary Hooper, D-Montpelier, said that the testimony Thursday raised interesting questions about how to address issues of school discipline at the state level, when many school districts are protesting statewide mandates.
“But it’s clearly something that we need to, as a society, be appreciating,” Hooper said.
Hooper said the committee is in the learning process, and she didn’t foresee taking legislative action. However, she said, the discussion raised important questions about how to anticipate the needs of the young children in DCF custody.
“Rather than dealing with the issues after the fact, what are doing now to put these supports in place,” Hooper said.
