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A new article in the Washington Post reports Biden’s directives to not over-punish students with disabilities (St. George 2022). You can read the article here. The directives are designed to limit prejudice faced by students with disabilities. The thinking is that by reducing the amount that they face what the article calls “exclusionary discipline” meaning consequences that remove a student from the school and their classmates, there will be an increase in equity in school discipline.
I am in favor of any policy that limits the removal of special education students from their typically developing peers. According to the Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona in the article, “Exclusionary discipline, such as out-of-school suspensions, can exacerbate these challenges — increasing stress that may lead to a greater sense of social isolation and diminished academic achievement.” Cardona express the concern that exclusionary discipline, discipline that removes a student from the learning environment, has a negative impact on a student’s ability to learn. When we are discussing special education students, I am a big believer that the more time that a student is able to spend in a class, the better it is for that student. I think that by removing the student from the classroom for a disciplinary issue, barring some sort of catastrophic event, causes more problems than it solves. It is a negative experience for every stakeholder involved. Students can feel as though they don’t actually belong in the school environment. Teachers have to take additional time to try to integrate the student back into the class by repairing the relationship with the child and supporting any make-up work they have. Parents are left to wonder if the school is truly treating their student fairly and the community may lose trust in the school.
Green, Cohen and Stormont (2019) discuss similar concerns in an article which provides examples of several policies that could be used to mitigate the amount of exclusionary discipline used in schools. The authors express a concern that the use of exclusionary discipline can lead to students being wrongly referred to special education services, especially considering that students of color face more exclusionary discipline than white students (Balingit 2018). They cite a study that found that Black students with disabilities were 2.8 times more likely to be suspended than white students with disabilities. Green, Cohen, and Stormont highlight some policies that can help to combat the use of exclusionary discipline:
- Form an Equity Team: This should be done at the school level. The Equity Team is a team of stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds whose role is to ensure that data is being analyzed to check for any evidence of bias, creating and implementing action plans based upon the collected data, and review the effectiveness of the action plans. This team should be comprised anyone who is a stakeholder within the school including staff, faculty, administrators, parents, and even the students themselves. The researchers also note that this team should have similar demographics in areas of race, gender, cultural background, etc. to that of the student body meaning that if the student population of a school is majority Latinx, then this team should be majority Latinx as well.
- Write, Rewrite or Reassess Policies: Discipline policies should be either created or rewritten at the school in order to articulate and feature a commitment to equity. These policies should explicitly create and commit to partnerships with student families, create actionable objectives, and contain some sort of accountability process based upon the data collected by the Equity Team. These policies should be taught to the staff and outreach should be conducted to get the family of students on board. The researchers also suggest that any policies that relate directly to expected student behavior include a designated time (such as the first two weeks of class) to teach these expectations to the student body.
- Make Decisions Based on Evidence: The researchers suggest a multitiered system of support (MTSS) in order to support student behavior. This approach attempts to support students in many different areas, such as providing academic support, emotional support, and behavioral support. This allows schools to identify and collect data that demonstrates the effectiveness of any behavior support plans at the school across the many different aspects of a student’s school experience. The researchers note that while there is a lack of evidence towards any one MTSS model reducing the unequal distribution of discipline, it does allow a school collect the data necessary to evaluating if there is any disproportionate distribution of discipline at their own site.
- Disaggregate the Data: Data should be separated so that it can be compared by different demographic categories. The different categories should be compared to each other to assess whether students who are members of a certain group are receiving exclusionary discipline at a different rate than other groups within the school. The researchers recommend that this data be reviewed on a regular basis (they recommend monthly) by the school’s Equity Team and be shared with the school’s faculty and staff. The Equity Team should review the data to look for any issues and then create policies and action plans to try to rectify those issues.
I found these policy recommendations to be very helpful. I think especially that the involvement of parents and students on the Equity Team has the potential for very positive outcomes. I believe that this is especially important in a school where the demographics of the staff may be different than that of the student body as it has the potential to create increased trust between the school and the community. However, care must be taken to ensure that the voices of these stakeholders are not drowned out by the voices of the staff, faculty, and administration of the school. I would also suggest finding a way to make sure that the leadership Equity Team is comprised of community members so that their voices are amplified and the parents and students on the team do not feel as though they are there just to “check a box.” If those stakeholders disengage from the Equity Team, then I believe that will defeat its entire purpose.
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References
Balingit, M. (2018, April 24). Racial disparities in school discipline are growing, Federal Data Show. The Washington Post. Retrieved July 20, 2022, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/racial-disparities-in-school-discipline-are-growing-federal-data-shows/2018/04/24/67b5d2b8-47e4-11e8-827e-190efaf1f1ee_story.html
Green, A., Cohen, D. R., & Stormont, M. (2019). Addressing and preventing disproportionality in exclusionary discipline practices for students of color with disabilities. Intervention in School and Clinic, 54(4), 241–245. https://doi.org/10.1177/1053451218782437
St. George, D. (2022, July 19). Biden warns schools not to overpunish students with disabilities. The Washington Post. Retrieved July 20, 2022, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/19/school-discipline-special-ed-biden/
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