WASHINGTON — There’s a plan to ban kids from being suspended or expelled from publicly funded pre-kindergarten programs in D.C., and some think the ban should be extended to students of all ages.
A bill that would make it happen, The Pre-K Student Discipline Amendment Act, was introduced last year by councilman and education committee chairman, David Grosso.
Grosso says similar bans or limits are in place in at least 14 other jurisdictions, including public school systems in Chicago and Minneapolis.
Joyanna Smith, D.C.’s ombudsman for public education, was one of many who spoke in favor of the bill at a public hearing this week.
“Last school year, 20 percent of the cases that came to our office involved student discipline,” Smith said. “Parents reported to us that their children were being suspended at alarming rates for behaviors that seem connected to the students’ academic and emotional struggles. We heard regularly from parents who told us that their children were being suspended because they were having trouble concentrating, having trouble interacting with students, and having trouble following directions.”
Others who spoke at the hearing called for an even broader ban.
“It’s not just 3- and 4-year-olds. We shouldn’t be suspending any kids at any age,” said Judith Sandalow, with the Children’s Law Center. “My colleagues at Children’s Law Center are still seeing children suspended for being late or not wearing their school uniform. I ask, what message are we sending our students when, instead of tailoring our schools to their needs, we just kick them out? Are we telling these youngsters that they just don’t belong, that the adults don’t care enough to help them — we just want to get rid of them? We’ve got to do better for our kids.”
Mom Leslie Hatten would also like to see a broader ban.
“My frustrations began last school year. My 18-year-old and 13-year-old children were being repeatedly disciplined for disruptive behaviors. These behaviors included such things as not being focused, speaking out of turn, and not keeping still in their seats. Multiple disciplines resulted in in- and out-of-school suspensions. For my middle school child, when he received in-school suspensions, he was subjected to wearing a green vest, and told he couldn’t talk to anyone. Wearing this green vest told other students that he was not to be talked to.”
She added that her older child has been suspended so many times that “it just escalated his behavior.”
She asked each child’s school to do testing to see whether her kids needed extra help and was initially told they did not. The bad behavior got worse, so she got medical advice,
“My oldest son was medically diagnosed with a depressive conduct disorder, and my younger son was diagnosed with ADHD. This, however, did not prevent my children from being ultimately expelled from their schools before the end of the school year,” Hatten said.
During the 2012-2013 school year, more than 10,000 of DC’s 80,000 public school students were suspended at least once.
If you’d like to share your opinion of the proposal with the council, you have until 5 p.m. on Feb. 18 to submit a written statement.
