Responding to state and national concerns about the effects of out-of-school suspensions on students鈥� education trajectories, California has adopted several measures attempting to change the way that form of school discipline is used. Concerns linger, though, that Gov. Jerry Brown鈥檚 veto of one related bill may undermine the others.
The five bills the last month will, among other provisions:
鈥� Require districts to consider suspension and expulsion only after trying other ways to correct students鈥� behavior;
鈥� Make it clear that principals don鈥檛 have to expel students who bring toy guns, over-the-counter medicines, or their own prescription drugs to school;
鈥� Encourage schools to address truancy without involving law enforcement鈥攖ruant students in California can be fined hundreds of dollars for being late to school.
鈥� Affirm students鈥� right to return to school if they have been involved in the juvenile-justice system.
鈥� Require school districts to inform multiple agencies when foster children face expulsion and to work with those agencies on interventions.
鈥淭hey each tackle a piece of the problem,鈥� said Laura Faer, the education rights director at the , in Los Angeles. 鈥淎ll of these bills are about keeping young people in school and trying to prevent them from going into the school-to-prison pipeline.鈥�
But Ms. Faer and other advocates are disappointed Mr. Brown vetoed a measure that would have limited schools鈥� ability to suspend students on the grounds of the undefined concepts of 鈥渨illful defiance or disruption of school activities.鈥�
Willful defiance is the justification for more than 40 percent of suspensions in California each year, a recent report found, said the bill鈥檚 sponsor, Assembly member Roger Dickinson of Sacramento.
鈥淭he California education code lists 23 other reasons why a child can be suspended or expelled,鈥� Mr. Dickinson, a Democrat, said. 鈥淭he use of 鈥榳illful defiance鈥� is at the core of school discipline in California. The other bills are good bills. ... But unless and until we do something about the way willful defiance is used, we will not have gotten to the heart of what is at issue with the way suspension and expulsion is used in our schools.鈥�
Mr. Brown also vetoed a bill that would have required monitoring schools where 25 percent or more of all students or a subgroup of students have been suspended and encourage adoption of alternatives to addressing student behavior and discipline.
Voices of Opposition
California鈥檚 school boards鈥� and school administrators鈥� associations opposed the willful defiance bill. Mr. Dickinson said he felt Gov. Brown鈥檚 veto message was scripted by those groups.
鈥淚 cannot support limiting the authority of local school leaders, especially at a time when budget cuts have greatly increased class sizes and reduced the number of school personnel,鈥� the governor wrote in his veto message. 鈥淚t is important that teachers and school officials retain broad discretion to manage and set the tone in the classroom.鈥�
However, by the nonprofit research and policy organization EdSource, in Oakland, Calif., issued a few weeks before Mr. Brown鈥檚 veto, found that 85 percent of school administrators surveyed wanted a better definition of willful defiance.
鈥淲hen we are suspending or expelling students for nebulous offenses, we don鈥檛 know what鈥檚 going on,鈥� said Matthew Cregor, the assistant counsel of the education practice at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in New York City.
鈥淭hat subjective category of discipline, ... I don鈥檛 think we have a piece of state legislation out there right now that targets it,鈥� Mr. Cregor said..
In 2010, Louisiana lawmakers passed a bill that would have required school boards to define 鈥渨illful disobedience鈥� along with rules and guidelines for the suspensions issued for that offense. School districts would also have been barred from suspending students for violating school uniform rules, and for being absent or tardy frequently. The proposal also would have required districts to hold a hearing about a student recommended for expulsion within 10 days. If a hearing wasn鈥檛 held, students would have been able to return to their school or an alternative one.
A by the nonprofit groups Families and Friends of Louisiana鈥檚 Incarcerated Children, in New Orleans, and the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, in New York, found that about 12 percent of Louisiana public school students were suspended out of school each year, many for the kinds of violations the bill, proposed by state Sen. Sharon Weston Broome, would have put a stop to. Ms. Broome, a Baton Rouge Democrat, worked with lawmakers in the Republican-controlled legislature to generate bipartisan support for the measure.
鈥淭he bill would not have taken away rights or restricted teachers from using any tools and strategies they wanted to use in their classrooms,鈥� Ms. Broome said.
Local Control
But Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, on exactly those grounds, adding that it would have stripped districts of local control.
鈥淣othing in current law prevents a school board from deciding to reduce the use of suspension or expulsion, speed up the expulsion hearing process, or hold parent-teacher conferences in a timelier manner,鈥� he wrote in his veto letter last year.
The closest any state has come to restricting suspensions imposed for what are deemed vague reasons is Connecticut, Mr. Cregor of the Legal Defense Fund said. In 2007, state law changed to keep schools from using out-of-school suspensions as anything but a last resort, after districts tried other interventions repeatedly. Students who pose a danger to themselves or others are an exception.
The law didn鈥檛 take effect until the 2010-11 school year, but districts began changing practices right away, an analysis by Connecticut Voices for Children, a New Haven nonprofit that works on improving families鈥� lives, found. Statewide, the number of suspensions dropped from 7 percent of students a year before the law was enacted to 5.4 percent the year after, said Sarah Esty, a policy fellow at Connecticut Voices.
